It has taken me a long time to figure out people’s fascination with beans. Beans in the fresh form and dried beans seem to dominate the market from mid-summer on. Colors, textures and varieties on are full display and there is a recipe or two for each and every type.
My previous experience has been the standard stringless green bean, although in culinary school and beyond I was introduced to the wonder of haricot verte, roma beans, french broad beans and the like. For a long time I didn’t put two and two together to realize that fresh beans when left on the vine produced most of our dried beans in the form of next year’s seed.
Aside from some exceptions to the rule, this efficient, straight forward way of planting, growing and harvesting provided food for the cold winter months while still producing ample crops for summer. When you consider that attribute of beans, the term multipurpose takes on a whole new meaning.
I believe that people’s attachment with beans may start with the social aspect of the vegetable. Much like a quilting bee or a baked bean supper (no pun there) the act of harvesting and cleaning the beans whether fresh or dried, is much more enjoyable in a group. And when the group gets together, what better and more efficient way is there to feed a lot of them than a big pot of beans?
Piecework on a large scale like this requires a certain amount of patience. Stringing or clipping the fresh beans, or shucking the dried ones is detail work, and the pile of beans on one side rarely seems to get smaller if you’re doing it alone. Better to have someone to talk with, a co-worker or better yet a family member, in a kitchen corner or maybe on the back porch with a cold beer.
This is truly community agricultural, and yes sometimes it does take a village.
The end result, whether fresh or dried, is dinner, and with that comes the next step in the bean’s cycle: what method of cooking shall we employ? For this, I often look to the type of bean I’m working with. Broad, flat roma beans are meaty and somewhat rich. I pair them with sauces, cut them into soups like a minestrone or stews and fricassees. They stand up well to a longer cooking time and even when very well done they still retain the nice flat structure without breaking up too badly.
Often if they are a side dish, I’ll use pancetta or bacon as an accompaniment. Sautéed or caramelized onions and a compound butter are also good ways to finish off the roma beans for service. Unlike the haricot or tenderettes, roams aren’t nearly as good cold, I save that method for other beans.
Haricot vert, stringless snap beans, tenderettes and wax beans are all two-way beans, capable of cold and hot presentations. Their narrow bodies don’t have the meat to stand up to long cooking so most of the hot presentations will start with blanching, and shocking the beans to preserve color, flavor, texture and nutrients. From that point on, a quick sauté with shallots or toasted almonds, garlic and some lemon juice just to finish are all that’s needed to bring out the grassy goodness of a new bean.
If a cold presentation is what you crave, it is simply a matter of pairing the beans with some sweetness, acid and seasoning. The new beans take nicely to a quick marinade, less so to a heavy mayonnaise based dressing. The Nicoise salad is a prime example of the versatility of beans in general, as many of the original versions of the salad had an actual white bean as one of the ingredients. Putting a nicely cooked and seasoned haricot vert in its place adds color and texture to this classic cold salad.
As they mature and start to form the seed/bean inside the pod, the skin gets much tougher and most people will resort to the “country bean method.”
Being a northerner by birth I wasn’t exposed to country beans as a kid. We did have canned green beans which were awful, and fresh green beans in season which were great. The concept of taking a bean and purposely cooking it to soft baffled me at first. But after sampling some country beans cooked by a master I “got the dish.”
Take older beans, meaty and slightly tough. Add bacon, onion, some water or stock, and a touch of vinegar and cook until soft. The fat from the bacon rendering out slowly is like butter for a young bean.
The onion adds the sweetness and the vinegar adds the bite. Don’t ever boil, and really don’t let them turn to mush. This dish is a small step away from what you would do with dried beans, and it could be every bit as satisfying.
Finally, when you get to the point of shucking the pods for drying beans, the cooking methods change dramatically. Freshly shucked beans can be simmered and served fairly quickly.
Once dried, they benefit from soaking (plumping the bean with moisture and lowering the amount of gas they generate). Both fresh dried and older dried beans retain their shape and texture far into the cooking process.
Black beans simmer for hours it seems, baked beans could take a day to cook and one to rest before eating. Cannellini beans or white beans are mainstay starches for minestrone and cassoulet respectively both dishes traditionally taking hours to finish.
Baked beans suppers, common to New England in the fall and winter are meant as social gatherings, a bit of competition, and a way to feed a large group with little fanfare.
The idea that beans are more than just a protein rich food capable of feeding many people from a single pot is not lost on anyone who cooks them. From start to finish they mean so much more.
John Foster is an executive chef who heads the culinary program at Sullivan University’s Lexington campus. A New York native, Foster has been active in the Lexington culinary scene and a promoter of local and seasonal foods for more than 20 years. The French Culinary Institute-trained chef has been the executive chef of his former restaurant, Harvest, and now his Chevy Chase eatery, The Sage Rabbit.
To read more from Chef John Foster, including his recipes, click here.
