| To See the World in a Green Rice Bean | |
by Judy Sobeloff, from the April 2003 newsletter
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
William Blake, “Auguries of Innocence”
Scene 1: I spy a new kind of bean, subtly shimmering green rice beans. Beans so beautiful I hear poetry, the line from Blake about seeing the world in a grain of sand. I reach for them (slow motion, sunlight streaming in) until the card on their bulk bin stops me cold: “INFORMATION PENDING.” A red flag, this stonewalling so early in the relationship? I flee toward the dairy and eggs section.
Scene 2: Same as Scene 1.
Scene 3: Same as Scene 1. And then...I give the green rice beans another longing glance. They look like “Good N Plenty’s”, organic of course, pale green and white for Spring. What is life about, anyway? Didn’t Eleanor Roosevelt say we must do the thing we’re afraid to do? I fill a bag and take them home.
Never heard of green rice beans? You’re not alone. They’ve only been on the market a year, according to Lola Weyman, owner of Zürsun Ltd., the wholesale bean and lentil business in Twin Falls (slogan: “Idaho is full of beans”) that created green rice beans. Ms. Weyman told me she works with a plant breeder who developed the green rice bean about four years ago by cross-pollinating white rice beans and green flageolets. White rice beans were introduced in Europe from Asia in the 1860s, and green flageolets, according to ChefShop.com, are “a pale green bean that is a favorite in French cuisine.” Ms. Weyman said the cross-pollination process took “seven or eight growing seasons, to make sure they’re stable and don’t revert back to one parent or the other.”
I set off to make Improvisational Green Rice Bean Salad, so titled by me because the entire recipe is a casual one-sentence list of suggested ingredients by ChefShop.com – as far as I know, the only published recipe for green rice beans currently in existence! In the absence of fresh sweet corn and fresh tomatoes, I used thawed frozen corn and re-hydrated sun-dried tomatoes, both of which worked fine. I didn’t soak the beans, as ChefShop.com said soaking is unnecessary; Ms. Weyman, however, says that while “they do cook up quicker than other beans,” she recommends using the “quick soak” method: cover beans with water, bring to a boil, take the pot off the heat, and let sit for an hour.
I brought the bean salad to my baby lunch group where Kate (known at the Co-op as “Avery’s mom”) said, “I’ve never had beans like this. I like the subtle vinegar taste.” Despite the occasional mom who found the beans undercooked or who would have preferred more vinegar, the moms universally agreed that Improvisational Green Rice Bean Salad was “really good” and “yummy.” Jen suggested it would be even better with cooked green beans. The only person who didn’t seem gaga about the bean salad was my 16-month-old daughter, Jonna. When I gave her a bean, she spat it out, pointed to it on the floor, and said, “Uh-oh.” Applause for leftovers the following night was more tempered. Ever heard of “damning with faint praise?” Krista found the beans “very aesthetic.” Nils, thinking hard, called them “delicate.”
Where, then, is the fine line between blending in gracefully and disappearing altogether? I pressed on, substituting green rice beans for their parent bean, the flageolet, in “Flageolets, French-Style,” which featured beans in a rich cream sauce, and for white beans in “Beans and Greens,” with kale, both from “How to Cook Everything” by Mark Bittman. The green rice beans performed admirably in both these dishes; I found them mild and rich, able to take on the subtle flavor of whatever they were cooked in. Good listeners, these beans! As my neighbor Betsy, who sampled the “Beans and Greens” and a gratin variation, said, “It’s the perfect amount of bean in a bean. Unlike pinto beans, for example, that have a lot of bean in a bean.”
At any given time while cooking these beans, I moved from a meditative rinsing and sorting through the beans with Jonna in the backpack to spinning around with her in the roller chairs in our kitchen to walking with her head resting on my shoulder. I lay down beside her to help her fall asleep, listening to the melodic strains of the beans rattling away in their pot in the kitchen, realizing I had no idea how long they’d been cooking. “Baby time,” as local midwife Nancy Draznin says, “is delicious.” And so are green rice beans, inside and out.
Improvisational Green Rice Bean Salad (from ingredients suggested by ChefShop.com)
1/2 lb. green rice beans (1 heaping cup)
2 diced tomatoes
2 bell peppers
1 diced onion
1 cup fresh sweet corn
*light dressing
Cover beans with water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer until beans are tender but still intact, approximately 1 to 2 hours. Toss with remaining ingredients and serve cold. *I used a vinaigrette based on a recipe in “How to Cook Everything”: 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar, 1/2 tsp. salt, 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil, black pepper to taste.
|
Copyright: Copyright on articles, recipes and
images are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op and the respective contributors,
except were otherwise noted.
|
For additions or corrections to this page, please contact the Webmaster.
