Customer Reviews

The Benevolent Bean

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This book is a guide to eating beans. It begins with about 35 pages of introductory material arguing why we should all eat more beans. The authors point out that Italians eat plenty of beans and have lower rates of heart disease than we do. They also summarize the results of a medical study they were involved in, in which subjects were fed bean-rich diets, which seemed to result in lowered cholesterol counts. The authors also discuss a little of the history of the various families of beans. Following the introductory section come the recipes, organized by type of dish: soups, bean pots, cassoulets, entrees, side dishes, and salads. They also include separate chapters for soybean recipes and historical recipes from Imperial Rome.

I found the botanical discussion fascinating-I wasn't aware that, like the potato, the tomato, and corn, beans were also an agricultural treasure of the American hemisphere. Asia, Africa, and Europe did have legumes before trade with the Americas began in the 15th century, but these were restricted mainly to fava beans, garbanzos, and lentils. Green beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, black beans, and white beans all came from the Americas. As an experiment, I tried growing a wide variety of beans in my garden this summer to see what the plants looked like. Indeed, the soybean, adzuki, and mung bean plants all looked vaguely beany, but very different from the green bean, kidney bean, black bean, and white bean plants. The garbanzo plants, on the other hand, looked almost more like pea plants than beans, and the lentil plants were entirely different. After reading this book, I finally know why the plants were grouped in this way.

The book contains recipes for all manner of beans, from fresh green beans right off the bush to dried beans to canned garbanzos. It includes recipes from many different cultures, such as Tutu of black beans from Brazil, or Javanese bean salad. Nevertheless, the ingredients for the recipes tend to be easy-to-find ordinary stuff, not exotic tidbits. While there are a number of recipes that would be suitable for vegetarians, most of the recipes in the book call for meat of some kind, especially pork. The authors note that beans by themselves tend to be dry, so they really need added oil to make them palatable, which is why they are so often cooked with meat.