beans.

there's been a lot of talk about beans lately. a classmate brought a delicious dish of beans to a potluck last week. turns out they were rancho gordo dry beans he bought in san fran before leaving to move to boston. i just read a small piece about fiber and where to get it...beans. but really, the kicker was in ag class this week: talking about agricultural industrialization and the transition in the uk from a one crop system (grain/fallow) to a two crop system (grain/legume/fallow). the addition of the legume (bean!) added nitrogen to the soil and protein to the human diet (a nice side effect). the prof's slide showed something like a lima bean...but we wondered what kind of bean it really was. he said he couldn't find that info and sent us on a search.

that all leads to me thinking back to a year ago when i was helping jason & amber harvest and thresh beans at their red truck farm (wow, so glad to see they have a blog, with a great post about the beginning of dry bean season). these are the best beans i have ever eaten. i wonder if they will ship me some on the east coast, even though it automatically makes them non-local! there is nothing like harvesting real food, by hand (ok, or with small clippers) to put much of life in perspective. clipping and pulling the dried plants and stacking them in their appropriate pile, by variety, in the metro barn. running each variety through the thresher (a modified wood chipper), clearing out stem and leaf debris as they clog the machine. pouring rubbermaid binds and 5 gallon buckets of dry beans, leaf parts and small clods of soil past the gust of a running fan to separate the seed from the rest. each tiny, beautiful seed will grow more of its kind or nourish someone's belly. i guess it's good to know when we have found the things that mean something to us.

that all leads me here now. flipping through the rancho gordo heirloom beans cookbook. wondering which beans the people of the uk used to eat and how those beans got there (most beans are new world or eastern in origin). missing the sunny september days of portland, the fun of farming with friends, harvesting quinces from the howell bybee orchard and enjoying the seasonally angled, golden yellow of the fall sun on sauvie island. but knowing that just as much stands ahead as behind.

off to research my beans!

info on basic bean varieties and their history.