Broccoli Rising and Beans with Benefits
Feeling the love? Valentine’s Day’s coming, and that’s great, but the love’s already here. Today is World Pulses Day, a loving celebration of beans.
How do beans love us? Let me count the ways:
Beans love us by loving the Earth. The nodules on their roots feed nitrogen — natural, plant-based organic fertilizer — to our depleted soil.
Beans love us by thriving in tough growing conditions. They require less water and produce fewer greenhouse gases than livestock production (not a sexy graphic, but it’s worth studying). Beans are among the most sustainable foods we can eat, and at a time when like it or not, we’re being smacked with the dire effects of climate change, our future depends on making Earth-smart food choices.
Beans love us by feeding us well. They’re the OG plant-based protein. They top the charts for heart-healthy, belly-filling fiber-rich foods.
Beans love us by helping us save money. They’re pantry-friendly, accessible and affordable, even in these days of soaring food prices.
We love beans for all that, but let’s not forget their versatility and sheer detectability. Beans can burger — check out Joe Yonan’s recipe (recipe below for paid subscribers) from Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking , beans can bake, and who better to offer a vegan Boston baked beans recipe than Beantown Kitchen’s Diana Goldman? Beans can falafel and fry, but to taste beans at their most exciting and lovable, pair them with tomatoes. That combination of creamy, earthy beans and juicy, tart, sweet tomatoes is the food meet cute the whole world loves.
Lentils and tomatoes cook up into Beejhy Barhany’s silky, spicy messer wat, from Gursha, her new cookbook sharing the cuisine and culture of Beta Israel, Ethiopia’s Jewish community (recipe below for paid subscribers).
It just takes a touch of rosemary or sage to make Italy’s beans and tomatoes sing like a bird in fagioli all’uccelletto. It means bird beans (everything sounds better in Italian).
My vegan version of Spain’s fabada asturiana gets richness and smokiness from tomato and saffron, not pork.
Giant limas love up tomatoes in Greece’s gigantes plaki.
In Mexico, the same big beans and tomato might get a little kick from chile heat.
In Georgia — the country, not that state — beans and tomatoes get accessorized with walnuts and khmeli sumeli, an herbal blend of up to a dozen herbs.
In nearby Turkey — the country, not the bird — less is more, but less is luscious. I make a vegan version of a recipe from Black Sea by travel writer and sister Substacker Caroline Eden. Using vegan butter rather than olive oil adds a sumptuous creaminess and complexity to this simple dish (recipe below for paid subscribers).
I’m a happy member of the Beans is How coalition, a global initiative dedicated to transforming food systems, championing sustainability, and nourishing communities with the power of beans. Read how beans are changing — and feeding — the world.
There are so many more ways to love beans and taste the way they love us back. My archives are ful of bean recipes. Become a paid subscriber and access them all.
Happy World Pulses Day. Love ya lots.