Farm Bulletin: Soak Beans Before Cooking, the Farmer's Plaint

Some cooking techniques are writ in stone. Preheating your oven before baking. Rinsing basmati rice in several changes of water before cooking. Stuff like that. Others are matters of debate, with pros and cons argued vociferously on either side. One of those is soaking dried beans overnight before cooking. To no one's surprise, I give credence to contributor Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek Farm's explanation (see below), who, in my opinion, with Carol Boutard, grows some of the finest beans in all the land.

Why has the practice of soaking grains and beans prior to cooking persisted for several millennia? Biologically, two separate events occur when the bean awakens in the presence of moisture.

Ayers Creek Farm borlotti beans.

Germinating seeds release into the surrounding soil nasty compounds when they germinate. These compounds discourage insects, fungi and bacteria from attacking the seedling before its own defenses are developed. Some seeds also release compounds that prevent neighboring seeds from germinating, a phenomenon called allelopathy. Some people claim these compounds are nutritious and tasty. Poppycock, I say. I suggest tasting the soaking water and decide for yourself whether the stuff is tasty…it isn’t. This is one reason why people traditionally soaked grains and legumes, and then drained the soaking liquid before cooking them.

Soaking makes beans sweeter and smoother.

There is a second reason, more of an aesthetic gesture. The seed is very carefully packaged to provide energy in the form of simple sugars and building materials in the form of amino acids when it breaks dormancy and the embryo begins to grow. Millions of simple sugars are connected together to form starch molecules. The amino acids are connected to one another to form proteins. The starches and proteins are densely packed around the embryonic plant. When the seed germinates (i.e. soaked overnight), specialized enzymes snip apart the starches and proteins, and those unpacked units are then assembled to grow the plant. Imagine a pallet of lumber that is strapped together, efficiently packaged for storage and transport, but not yet a house. The enzymes are akin to carpenters, pulling the pallet apart and reassembling it. They also need energy to fuel their work in the form of simple sugars until the seedling is ready to photosynthesize its own food.

Black beans.

Cooking without soaking relies on the brute force of heat to break apart the package rather than the elegant, gentle, natural mechanism given us in the simple seed. Akin to running over the pallet with a bulldozer. I find the flavor and texture are better with soaking, a bit sweeter and smoother. I cannot fathom the objection to soaking them overnight, as though it is some major inconvenience. Bear in mind, the farmer spent several months tending the crop for your table.  What’s a few more hours to do justice to the farmer’s careful effort? 

So that's it.

You can find a good selection of Ayers Creek Farm dried beans at Rubinette Produce.

Farm Bulletin: Our Garden Beans, a Dried Bean Primer

As contributor Anthony Boutard outlines below, he and Carol have been adapting their beans at Ayers Creek Farm to our Pacific maritime climate and the soil of their Wapato Valley location—not to mention their own tastes—for well over a decade. The roster, along with the beans themselves, has changed over the years, and it was time for an update. You can find all of these beans, raisins, popcorn and the farm's other products at two upcoming open farm weekends. Details at the end of this post.

Over the decade and half we have been growing dry beans commercially, we cultivated more than three dozen types. It has been an effort to find beans that will grow in the climate of the Pacific Northwest and appeal to our palate, and, equally important, succeed in commerce. We have trimmed our list to types with distinct qualities while avoiding pointless overlap.

Tarbesque.

We favor beans that are delicious on their own and yield a good stock on their own when cooked. No need to add stock or meat. Thin skins and a non-grainy texture are also important qualities. Many of our beans come to us upon recommendation of others. We acknowledge and are grateful for their generosity of ideas. We have been working with and eating these beans for 15 years or so. They have been shaped by and adapted to our approach to farming, our environment, our customers and our love of beans. Otello’s Pebbles is the exception; it was a new offering last year, but adheres to the overall idea.

As a general matter, we recommend soaking the beans overnight. This engages the enzymes in the beans which break down the proteins and carbohydrates into simpler units. There is an aesthetic to allowing beans to start the process on their own natural terms, rather than using brute force of heat alone, or worse, the extreme impatience of a pressure cooker. In our experience, soaking results in a sweeter bean when cooked. Nonetheless, plenty of people eschew our biological aestheticism.

Borlotto Gaston a la Ava Gene's.

Garden beans follow two forms of growth, types with a low bush habit and those with a tall vining habit requiring supportive structures. Then there are a handful that refuse to follow a binary habit, called semi-vining, which climb upon one another and the weeds but have no use for structures to guide their wayward nature. The pole types are more expensive because the vining habit requires the nearly simultaneous planting of thousands of bamboo poles and assembling a supporting structure. The poles and structures must be removed after harvest. The pole sorts are worth the effort because they have qualities that are missing in even the best bush types.

The finest beans, with their thin skins, require a gentle hand at harvest. They are far too fragile for a combine. Dry beans commonly found in stores have bred with thicker skins which allows mechanical harvesting and helps them keep their shape in a tin can.

Pole Sorts Described

Borlotto Gaston: A classic large horticultural type with a fine texture and flavor.

Borlotto Gaston.

A passing comment by [Nostrana owner and chef] Cathy Whims at a 2002 winter farms’ market noting how much she loved the beans of Lamon landed this bean in our mix. Over the last decade and a half, we have carefully selected for the lumpy, ugly pods that produce the best quality seeds, improving the quality of the beans in the process. We make the classic sauerkraut, potato and pork jowl soup fragrant with cumin from Trieste called La jota many times over the course of winter. It is the bean that has made Ava Gene’s "beans on toast" their signature menu item—the bean that launched a thousand of pieces of toast.

Tarbesque: A large flattened white bean of the sort most commonly associated with cassoulet. It is a bean for soups or stews where you want the bean to hold its shape.

The original seed stock came from Pascal Sauton when he was the chef at Riverside Hotel back around 2003. This sort of bean is grown around the area of Tarbes in southwestern France. There the Tarbais is protected as an A.O.C., so we deftly renamed it. Sort of like the Tarbais but not exactly. We don’t have the same soils and climate and, unlike the fair people of Tarbes, we pick the pods by the handful, not one by one.

Black Basque.

Black Basque: This black bean is best as a solo performer. Cooked on its own and finished with some olive oil, the stock and the beans make a delicious soup to accompany a bit of toast seasoned with garlic and a chunk of sausage or pork belly. Cathy Whims uses these for her version of Anne Bianchi’s "Bastard Soup." For complex or spicy dishes, the black turtle is a better choice.

Wapato White: A very fine textured white bean with a distinctly buttery consistency. Good solo, with lamb or in an escarole soup.

Wapato White.

We lived for several years in the Boston area. Our neighborhood was considered "integrated” because it included both Italian and Portuguese families. Somerville had its rough edges. One Halloween morning, while preparing breakfast, we watched a hit by the legendary Winter Hill Gang outside our kitchen window—apparently an uncollected debt precipitated the deed, though the debtor was simply shot up to jog his memory, not necessarily to kill him. He survived. The hitmen wore gorilla masks, appropriately, and dropped the revolver in the street. We called the police and they investigated. They told us in a perfunctory manner that the getaway car was dumped in Dedham, as if that might be expected, and the victim claimed he didn’t know anything or anyone—that was definitely expected. Notwithstanding this incident, it was a friendly neighborhood where children, our daughter included, played in the street.

In the Boston area, bean and escarole soup was a winter favorite of the Italian and Portuguese communities, and the supermarkets had mounds of beautiful escarole heads for the purpose. For those on the run, the Progresso company had a canned escarole soup available especially for the Boston market. Much to the dismay of many, they dropped that traditional soup. For a while, they offered an Italian wedding soup with escarole, but now it contains spinach, alas. The last week or so, we have been enjoying many variations on escarole soup.

Bush Sorts

Black turtle: Not much to add. The turtle bean has a distinct flavor well-suited to spices and garlic.

Woodblock label by Anthony.

Carol’s godmother was Cuban and the soup was a staple for us. We wanted a fresh, well-grown turtle bean, so we grew them. For several years, we just sold them at the farmers’ market as several chefs told us black beans were "tough to plate." Fortunately, that dainty sentiment has fallen by the wayside.

Purgatorio: For the most part, beans and fish are not a pleasing combination to contemplate. The flavor and texture are wrong. Purgatorio provides an exception. The small beans provide a better texture for fish and the flavor is neutral, i.e. not especially beany. As the name indicates, it was consumed on Fridays and during the Lenten fast, with fish. Use the bean stock as the base for a fish and beans soup seasoned with a hint of cumin. The Oregon bay shrimp is good as well. This small bean is excellent with lamb dishes.

Purgatorio in a stew.

Here is how it was introduced to us. We had dinner at Al Covo, a Venetian restaurant that specializes in fish. The person serving us noted that she was from Texas and wanted to know where we lived and what we did. On a whim, we introduced ourselves as bean farmers from Oregon. A few minutes later her husband, Cesare Benelli, emerged from the kitchen and told us how much he loved beans. The chef then turned serious and told us that we should grow the bean from Gradoli, as it is the best bean for serving with fish. He checked in the kitchen, but they had run out of the beans. A few months later, our sister-in-law Shirin sent us a gift box with several types of beans, by coincidence it included "purgatorio," the bean of Gradoli.

Zolfino: Another solo performer. Classic bean for a simple white bean soup. Provides a lovely stock during cooking. Cook with a sprig of rosemary, thyme or sage – just a light seasoning so as not to overwhelm their fine flavor. Remove about three-quarters of the beans, mash them into the stock and then return the whole beans. A bit of olive oil to top it off.

Dutch Bullet: This bean is a superior alternative to the kidney bean. It is thin skinned with much finer texture, but has a sweet, beany flavor we enjoy in the red types.

Dutch Bullet.

Given to us by a legendary Dutch plant breeder, the late Kees Sahin, when he visited the farm. He was insistent we grow it and it has been on the dossier for more than a decade. You will notice how thin the skin is relative to the modern red kidney bean, a bean skillfully modified to stand up to the combine and tin can.

Otello’s Pebbles: Excellent assertive flavor, the texture is silky and they cook down to a soupy beany broth. We have added them to the broth of lambs shanks and pork shoulder.

This is another bean that arrived uninvited. We were sent an irritatingly small package of beans by Nancy Jenkins, a food writer and author. The note in the package, written by another person, noted that the bean was grown by someone called Otello and praised the bean as growing well in poor soil. Not much of an endorsement, and not a word about its culinary qualities, worse the package contained what appeared to be an assortment of types, something bean growers work hard to avoid. The package would have been relegated to the ACF seed museum except that Myrtha Zierock and Anthony were planting a block of soy and had space for a few more seeds. We joked that the beans looked like pebbles and tossed them into the seeder. At harvest, we cooked up the beans and found they had their own redeeming qualities. They arrived unnamed so we have dubbed them Otello’s Pebbles.

* * *

From Anthony:

"We are planning a couplet of open days on November 10th and 11th. Our hours will be from 3-5 pm. We will have only a smattering of preserves available at this time. We will be processing the fruit over the following week and are planning another open day couplet on the 1st and 2nd of December. As a reminder, for those who find the journey out to the farm difficult, Barbur World Foods and Rubinette Produce, carry robust selections of our beans and grains in their produce departments. Providore probably has a better selection of preserves on the shelf than we do at the moment. We will have the full complement of our beans, grains and mustard seed. We will also have 'Ave Bruma' melons, escarole, beets, large white onions and demi-sec Lakemont grapes."

Photo of Lakemont grapes by Anthony Boutard. Rum raisin ice cream from Sarah Minnick's Instagram feed.

Farm Bulletin: This Farmer Knows Beans

Contributor Anthony Boutard shares a primer on the beans he and Carol grow at Ayers Creek Farm.

Following on the heels of many inquiries, here is the latest version of our bean propaganda as handed out at the recent Variety Showcase put on by the farming impresario Lane Selman and the Culinary Breeding Network.

Tarbesque.

All of the beans and grains sold at the Hillsdale Farmers’ Market are grown by us on the farm. We do not repackage other farms’ production or buy bulk beans for resale and we are certified organic. A theme running through Ayers Creek’s grains, legumes and vegetables is adaptation to our latitude, the 45th parallel. We look to maritime-influenced regions such as the Bordeaux and Dordogne in France, Galicia in Spain, the Po River Valley of Italy, parts of the Danube Valley and Hokkaido, Japan. We are not bound by such an analysis, but it is a useful vetting mechanism.

Our primary selection criterion is a bean that can be savored on its own, just a bit of salt and olive oil. Over the last 12 years, we have grown a wide diversity of dry beans; the beans below we deem worth growing. Cute stories and pretty color patterns don't carry much water with restaurants or habitual bean eaters; the flavor and texture are everything once it gets to the plate.

Soaking? Recommended, but not mandatory.

We prefer soaking the beans overnight before cooking. The bean is a dormant, living plant. When you soak it, the plant opens up its toolkit of enzymes and starts to break apart the large protein and carbohydrate molecules that store its nutrients and energy. In our experience, soaking lends the bean a discernible sweetness and a smoother texture than just hammering things apart with heat. We treat soaking as an elegant step in the process rather than an inconvenience. However, with a good bean, it is best to cook it however you want. If the ritual of soaking irritates or crimps your style, relax and follow some other method and hammer away. Regardless, you are not affecting the nutritional value if you soak the beans and toss out the soaking water.

The next day we drain them, add fresh water, bring to a boil and then simmer until tender. Time varies by variety and age of the bean. You can also add herbs, carrots, onions and celery to season the beans. If the dish calls for meat, we generally cook the beans in water first so they retain their own flavor. Avoid cooking beans in an acid liquid such as tomato sauce because they will not cook properly, remaining tough and grainy. It is fine to add salt whenever you want. We follow the late Judy Rodgers suggestion to salt the cooking water to taste. Refrigerate the beans in their cooking liquid.

Anthony and the Roto-Fingers Pea-Bean Sheller.

The church on the way to town has one of those boards updated with infuriatingly banal dictates. This week, it tells us "freedom isn't doing what you want, it is doing what is right." In our world of beanality, freedom is cooking beans exactly how you want; that is the right way. Unless you want to get really, really sick because of some ordeal poison fetish, though, never, ever eat them raw.

Pole Beans

Borlotto Gaston. Result of a decade of work on the great Borlotto Lamon (top photo). It is a superb in every respect. We have been selecting for earliness, short harvest period and four-bean pods. The last trait is very import determinant of flavor and texture; more is packed into fewer seeds. Chestnuts spring to mind as a description of the flavor. A key ingredient for La Jota and Pasta e Fagiole.

Black Basque. A black bean derived from the Spanish ‘Alubia de Tolosa’. The flavor is rich, sweet with a slight hint of chocolate, and with a silky texture. The flavor and texture is unlike any other black bean. Unfortunately, the supply is very limited this year.

Bianchetto. A medium, round white bean with excellent flavor and smooth, dense texture, buttery as opposed to creamy. A very fine bean, though aesthetically not the prettiest.

Tarbesque. Our selection of the French bean called ‘Tarbais’. Good flavor and texture, it is one of the beans traditionally used in the cassoulet. It holds up to long cooking; a trait which is essential to certain dishes. As with the black Basque, the supply is very limited this year.

Bush Beans

Dutch Bullet. We started growing this variety (left) at the suggestion of Kaas Sahin, the late Dutch plant breeder (Bull's Blood Beet was one of his varieties). The lowlanders like it because, as he noted, there is no flatus after eating it, as if that is a virtue for the more childish of us. Actually, none of beans we grow are particularly prone to creating such gastric maelstroms. We describe it is as the best of a red kidney bean without any of that bean's many flaws, or flatus. Dutch Bullet is thin-skinned with a fine texture and a well-balanced bean flavor with a pleasant sweet edge. It is dark yellow with a red eye. A versatile bean which is very popular with our restaurant accounts.

Zolfino. A light yellow bean identified with the Pratamango River Valley of Tuscany. Vastly superior to the cannellino, or white kidney bean. The bean is thin-skinned, very creamy in texture and is best served as a simple white bean soup.  No meat, just the beans, an herb (sage, thyme, or rosemary) and olive oil.

Purgatorio. A small, white bean from Gradoli, a town in the Lake Bolsena area of Italy. The name apparently refers to the fact that it is excellent with seafood, an uncommon trait in beans, and hence well-suited to the observance of the Lenten fast. Someone also mentioned detecting a hint of sulfur in the first stage of cooking, a plausible Dantesque explanation. These beans were recommended to us by Cesar Benelli of the restaurant Al Covo in Venice. Not only does the delicate flavor work nicely with seafood, the skin is thicker and more distinct than that of our other beans, which lends a nice texture when mixed with soft fish. Closer to home, Cathy Whims of Nostrana makes a lovely seafood soup with fish, a hint of cumin, sautéed onions and the beans in their cooking broth.

Farm Bulletin: The Meaning of Beans, Pt. 1

The following treatise on beans comes to us courtesy of our well-informed correspondent and Bard of Ayers Creek, Anthony Boutard. You can find him and assorted beans at the farmers' markets in Hillsdale and McMinnville.

In April, our friend Laleña Dolby asked us to unravel basic bean nomenclature. As we are staggering toward bean season, this slightly didactic response might clarify some terms.

Beans
What we call "beans" belong to the family Fabaceae, with two notable exceptions. Members of the Fabaceae are known colloquially as pulses or legumes. They all bear a fruit that botanists call a "pod." The pod splits into two halves, sometimes called valves. The pod has a distinct stem side and the seeds are fastened to that side. The place on the seed where it was attached to the pod is called the hilum, or the "eye." Most of the beans we eat are in the genus Phaseolus and all of these originated in the Americas.

Fava beans are actually a vetch, genus Vicia, and the "yard-long" or "asparagus" beans are a species of edible podded field pea, genus Vigna, to which Mung and Adzuki beans also belong. To keep things confusing, most members of the genus Vigna are called "peas." Moreover, they are in a different genus from the English or French pea, which is a species of Pisum. These are all "Old World" types, and were brought to the Americas by settlers.

There are also coffee and vanilla beans. Coffee is in the family Rubiaceae. Coffee bushes bear fleshy red berries, and inside the berries are two seeds we also call beans. There is no botanical basis for calling them beans. Vanilla beans are the fermented fruit of an orchid. It is a pod filled with seeds like the garden bean, just from a very different part of the plant kingdom.

String beans. These are traditional varieties that have a "string," or tough vascular tissue, along the stem side of the pod. If you break the bean and a stringy thing dangles forth, it is a string bean. If it breaks cleanly, it is a snap bean. Some beans "snap" when they are young, and develop a string as the pod matures. Others snap until they are too tough to eat. String and snap beans belong to the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) species. Traditionalists believe string beans are the best flavored of the beans, but they are a lot of work because they must be picked very young, or the strings must be removed with a stringer or a paring knife. The old southern varieties like "Caseknife" and "Creasy Cutshorts" are good string beans, but take too long to mature here. Yes, we are stubborn enough to think we could sell beans that have to be stringed. You all were spared that hard sell.

Runner beans. These are perennial bean plants that form a tuber and generally have a climbing habit. They are a separate species, Phaseolus coccineus, from the common green bean (P. vulgaris) which is an annual, dying after bearing fruit. The flowers or runners are large and showy, and they are often planted as ornamentals. Some are called "half runners" because the crawl rather than climb. Lima beans (P. lunatus) and tepary beans (P. acutifolius) are two other species of beans commonly eaten in the southern parts of the US. The pods of lima beans have a sharp point when they are dry, and stick into your flesh. They also pop open explosively when fully dry. We have tried growing them for five years, but unfortunately limas are poorly adapted to our climate.

Pole beans. These are climbing beans that can be trained up webbing, poles or twine. The beans that climb include: garden beans (snap and string, fresh shell and dry, green and wax), pole limas and runner beans. Pole beans are sought out because of their exceptional flavor and tenderness. The Willamette Valley once grew hundreds of acres of strung Blue Lake Pole beans; all had to be picked hand. (For those who delight in grammatical quirks, pole beans are strung; string beans are stringed.) Today, pole varieties have been replaced by bush beans that can be machine harvested.

It should be noted that pole green and wax beans are best when they have started to develop a seed. They also benefit from long, slow cooking. Among the dry or shell beans that grow on poles are Borlotto Lamon, Tarbais, Alubia de Tolosa and Bianchetto. There are pole beans that taste like crap, but as a rule the best quality dry beans are pole types. They have a most refined flavor and a creamiest consistency.

Go to Part 2. Shell, wax and bush beans, plus a secret recipe!

Farm Bulletin: Bastard Soup

This month our friend Anthony Boutard of Ayers Creek waxes eloquent about beans, especially the ones he and Carol will have at this Sunday's Hillsdale Farmers Market. If you can't make it to the market, perhaps you can make his Bastard Soup.

Pole Beans:

Black Basque: A beautiful black bean characteristic of the area around Tolosa, Spain. Also called "Alubia de Tolosa." When cooked, it turns a chocolate brown. The flavor is rich and sweet, and it is traditionally served on its own, or in very simple dishes such as "Bastard Soup." See recipe below.

Borlotto Lamon: The traditional Italian bean from hills northwest of Venice. The flavor is reminiscent of chestnuts. Traditionally, used in la Jota and pasta e fagioli. La Jota is the sublime sauerkraut soup of Trieste. See Marcella Hazen's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking for the recipe. [See the recipe I posted using some of these delicious beans. - KAB]

Bush beans:

Black Turtle: Used for Cuban black bean soup. The stock from the bean is inky black and it has a very fine texture. It is best with smoked pork, such as in Cuban black bean soup. We do not recommend this bean for vegetarians.

Coco Blanc: A round French bean with a distinct floury texture. Often served with lamb.

Colorado: A small red mexican bean. A workhorse of a red bean, good in Persian and Indian cooking, holding its own against strong spices and fragrant greens.

Pinto: A fresh, well-grown pinto is a wonderful bean. We cook it with slices of lime and garlic, and serve as a side dish.

Purgatorio: A very small thin sknned white bean originating from Gradoli (Viterbo), Italy. These beans are an excellent in dishes with fish, such as a fish based soup.

Zolfino: The Tuscan version of the sulphur bean. Lacking a distinct eye, and a bit smaller the American variety, its flavor is on the fruity side. Best served on its own, a splash of basil vinegar and some fruity olive oil suffice.

Zuppa Bastarda "Bastard Soup"

Here is an Italian black bean soup recipe from Zuppa by Anne Bianchi, courtesy of Cathy Whims. We suggest stopping by Nostrana to buy a loaf of Giana Bernadini's fine bread. This is the perfect way to have these wonderful beans, if the loaf survives the trip home - better make it two loaves. Bastard soup is so named because it uses black beans, which are called fascistini in honor of what Elda Cecchi calls "that black shirted bastard who brought Italy to the brink of destruction during WWII." On the positive side, it is very easy to prepare. "All you need," she says, "are good fascistini beans, some stale bread, and - above all - some exceptionally good extra virgin olive oil. Il gioco e fatto!" The game is won.
1 1/4 c. dried black beans, soaked
7 cloves garlic, peeled
1 med. red onion, peeled
2 tsp dried crumbled sage
8 3/4" thick slices peasant bread, stale or toasted
Salt to taste
4 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Freshly ground black pepper
4 Tbsp. basil pesto

1. Drain the beans and place in a soup pot along with 5 cloves of the garlic, the onion, sage and enough water to cover by 2 inches. Heat to boiling over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low, cover and cook for 1 ½ hours. Add more water if necessary. Salt at the halfway mark.

2. Cut the remaining garlic cloves in half. Using half a clove for each 2 slices of bread, rub the bread with the cut sides of the garlic until the bread is perfumed with the odor. Divided the slices among 4 bowls and top each with 1 Tbs of the basil pesto.

3. Pour the bean soup into the bowls over the bread. Serve hot.