Heirloom Beans

[caleb]

Hearing a lot of chatter about Rancho Gordo, but there are probably others out there.

Who here has gone down the heirloom bean rabbit hole? Are they really a revelation?

How are you cooking them? Soak and stove? Slow cooker? Pressure cooker? Other?

Talk to me.

[j44ke]

I've learned to love dried beans so this sounds like my next step. Is there a book? Amy Goldman does a lot of work on heirloom varieties of squash, tomatoes and melons, but I haven't seen any heirloom bean books.

Edit: cranberry bean - I didn't know that was heirloom. We eat that all summer because the farmer's market has them fresh. Shell and cook, either in a sauce or with garlic, shallots and oregano to be tossed with farro and Parmesan.

[big shanty]

Dried Rockwell beans from Whidbey Island, WA. Issued once a year, limit one bag per person. Damn near impossible to obtain

[caleb]

Dried Rockwell beans from Whidbey Island, WA. Issued once a year, limit one bag per person. Damn near impossible to obtain

Are they worth the effort?

[caleb]

Is there a book?

Not sure if there's a "go to" or not. If I don't get any other recommendations, I'll probably grab one from the Rancho Gordo website, along with a bean sampler, and go to town.

[caleb]

Just ordered some Midnight Blacks, Cranberries, Scarlett Runners, and Vaqueros - along with a bunch of gifts for family - from Rancho Gordo. Looking forward to giving these beans a try.

[spopepro]

It's always worth a try, but I haven't found that fancy heirlooms are significantly better/different from really high quality beans of more pedestrian pedigree. I suspect most people come from old, overly desiccated supermarket bagged beans to heirlooms and are blown away, when it's really more about finally getting beans that are well cared for. Fresh is a different story... if you have a farmer that sells them fresh it's always worth it.

My favorite is snowcaps. They are tasty, and have fun colorations that remain after cooking, and the local market has them pretty reliably. I'm pretty much always parboil/soak (dried beans boil for 2min, sit for about an hour, discard water), then stove.

[EliottS]

Dried Rockwell beans from Whidbey Island, WA. Issued once a year, limit one bag per person. Damn near impossible to obtain

Nice! This has all totally flown under my radar. Now, I have plans for all the previously vacant planter box space this spring. by the looks of it, they are available here: Rockwell - Bush Dry - Bean - Vegetables We'll see when my order processes.

[j44ke]

I see that Rancho Gordo is involved in Seed Savers. That's part of Amy Goldman's efforts as well. You can read more about her here: Amy Goldman Fowler - Author, Heirloom Gardener, and Artist She has a nice new book out, and the photos were done by my pal Jerry Spagnoli. I say photos, but that's an understatement technically. They are daguerreotypes, and they are lovely in the book and stunning in person.

Anyway, is Rancho Gordo a seed place or are they also selling food product? Or both?

This winter I have been throwing lentils in nearly everything, including pasta sauce. My favorites are beluga lentils, because uncooked they look a bit like caviar. They are typically used in salads (I think) because they really suck up the water they are cooked in so you can flavor them that way. But I like them in soups and stews (and pasta sauce) for the added texture and protein. Don't think they are rare or heirloom but they are tasty and quick to make.

[benito]

#1 bean tip DON'T SOAK.

unless you think your beans have too much flavor.


At my work, we make a vegetable juice (carrots/tomato/bell pepper/celery/onion) with a juicer, add chicken stock and let'em rip: they are the best beans i've ever had.

they might be controne but i forget exactly which variety we use.


favorite lentil recipe

aromatic vegetable sofrito:
onions
garlic
ginger
tomato
eggplant (japanese preferrably but really any will do)
splash of soy sauce

fry hard, until the water is cooked out an you get a fond on the bottom of the pan, scrape off then add water/stock, lentils. bring to a simmer.

add:
1 piece of star anise
1 stick ceylon cinnamon (this transforms the dish)
red chile puree (sambal works in a pinch too)

if you have it, a fresh herb sachet starring thyme/turkish bay/marjoram is really nice

with generic ca brown lentils it usually is done in about 30ish minutes.

i like to finish with some butter mixed in, a healthy splash of fresh lemon juice/zest, maybe some fresh herbs too if i have anything laying around.


red chile puree: de seed dried chile's, toast the skins, add hot water (not boiling) to rehydrate, fry in neutral oil (duck fat is cool too), blend.

[caleb]

I see that Rancho Gordo is involved in Seed Savers. That's part of Amy Goldman's efforts as well. You can read more about her here: Amy Goldman Fowler - Author, Heirloom Gardener, and Artist She has a nice new book out, and the photos were done by my pal Jerry Spagnoli. I say photos, but that's an understatement technically. They are daguerreotypes, and they are lovely in the book and stunning in person.

Anyway, is Rancho Gordo a seed place or are they also selling food product? Or both?

A couple years ago we bought my mom a Seed Savers membership, and she's been growing some of their beans successfully in northern Minnesota. I just had a great bean salad she grew/made last week.

Rancho Gordo does both seeds and food or, perhaps more accurately, they sell food that will grow. Most of their varieties seem to be native to the southwest, so I'm not sure how they'll do in northern climates.

[zetroc]

I got some Rancho Gordo Yellow Eye beans in my stocking and thought of this thread. Very Interesting.

[caleb]

We're approaching baked bean season, so I thought I'd update this thread.

I've enjoyed all of the beans I originally bought around Christmas, and I currently have the last of them on the stove.

So far my favorite has been - and apropos of the coming summer - simple vaquero baked beans.

Process:

1) Simmer the beans for a couple hours with carrot, celery, onion, and garlic. Then discard all the non-bean stuff.

2) Mix up a spicy version of a vinegar-based barbecue sauce, like this one: Jack's Old South Competition Vinegar Sauce Recipe : Food Network

3) Combine bbq sauce with beans to taste.

Done. You could add all sorts of things like onions, or peppers, or bacon, or pulled pork, or, or, or. But this is enough.

Eat on chips, on rice, with friends, or by yourself. It's good food that tastes good too.

[caleb]

There's an interesting profile of Steve Sando in the current New Yorker: The Hunt for Mexico’s Heirloom Beans | The New Yorker

[benito]

of the cheap stuff, goya pink beans are my favorite.

in terms of spending $$$ on beans, if they are older than a year they don't cook up as nicely and tend to require more time. (Cue French chef throwing things at you because his prissy thin-skinned beans went all merle haggard, but the distributor sent you old stock and now you hafta clean up his temper tantrum.)

[j44ke]

We are now members of Rancho Gordo's Bean Club. Or more correctly - Beans Club, because you get a box full of varieties. And it is great. We eat a lot of them in almost everything as well as just as a side dish. So far the large beans have been the real winners - Corona beans and Scarlet Runner beans. The SRB's are reasonably sized dry but grow immense (relatively speaking) while cooking and have a leathery (but not tough) skin with a meaty inside that knocks the heck out of vegetarian chili and other hearty cooking. Rancho Gordo sent a variety of spelt out with their last shipment that cooks up like a cross between wheat berries and farro, and I am thinking these wheat-family grains are perfect bean accompaniment. So far we've done salads (variable co-ingedients from tuna to fennel to celery & olives, etc.) and treated the grain like pasta and put bean-tomato sauce on top. Something about beans, fresh vegetables and tomatoes in a sauce on top of farro that fits nicely as the endnote to a hot day of cycling. And like Benito advises, we have stopped soaking the beans. They are dry but very fresh (less than a year old) and cook up really well. Use the bean water leftover to cook the farro or spelt or to add moisture to any sauce. Our friends actually save the bean water and drink it later, but I haven't tried that. We do salt the water we are cooking the beans in because the natural salts in the beans are part of the flavor, so upping the salt in the water minimizes the osmotic effect and helps (or seems to) keep the natural salts in the beans. Works the same with pasta and grains. And adding the water back into whatever is getting cooked as the final dish also helps preserve the flavor.

Anyway, for a vegetarian, these beans from Rancho Gordo have added a lot of variety and interest to our food.