tag:catherine-mason.co.uk,2008-01-13:/carbon-descent-food//8 2008-12-11T16:44:49Z a blog by Catherine Mason Movable Type Publishing Platform 4.01 tag:catherine-mason.co.uk,2008:/carbon-descent-food//8.47 2008-11-27T15:34:34Z 2008-12-11T16:44:49Z

Catherine Mason http://catherine-mason.com/ ]]>
The first, Borlotto Lingua di Fuoco, never made it to the fully dried stage.  They were so delicious fresh out of the pods that we managed to eat almost the entire crop as we picked them, leaving only a few saved as seed for next year.  They're lovely just as a hot vegetable with butter and pepper, or as a bean salad with an olive oil, garlic and white balsamic vinegar dressing.

We didn't do very much better with the second, runner bean Czar.   This one is a white-seeded runner bean which produces large beans quite similar to butter beans.  The photo shows them after drying - with a 10p coin for size reference.

This too was very tasty as a semi-dry, but I did manage to keep back about a kilo for winter use. They were fantastic - I was very impressed both with their flavour and the size - they're almost as big as the Greek giant beans encountered on holiday.  Apparently you can use them to make hummus but I've not tried this yet.

The third variety is know just as Pea bean.  It's a type of climbing French bean which produces very pretty bi-coloured white and maroon beans (like little Yin Yang symbols).  During cooking the colours merge to turn the beans a a lovely shade of  earthy pink.   They were utterly delicious too, and I didn't grow enough to dry.

There's obviously a common theme emerging here - I didn't grow enough of any of them!  Next year I'll be growing larger numbers of all the above.  2008 was a lousy summer and this must have had an adverse effect on bean crops but there is another factor at work too. When you leave the pods on the plants to develop, the plants don't crop anything like so prolifically as when pods are picked at an immature stage, as is normally the case with say runner beans.  A plant that's prevented from setting seed puts all its energy into creating more, but if seeds are allowed to develop the production pressure is off, or significantly reduced.

My guesstimate is that in a comparison of runner beans grown for picking at the normal stage compared to those grown for dried seeds, you'd probably need about three times the number of plants to get the same weight of beans.  My view is that if you have the space and like beans at all then they're worth trying.  I thought they were all very good indeed, and don't really know why they're not more popular.  Anyone who grows and enjoys broad beans would probably think they're fantastic.    
 

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Catherine Mason http://catherine-mason.com/ Getting them started

I started trying to germinate the seeds at the beginning of May 2008, but had a few problems getting them to germinate - they germinated over a long period, about three weeks, which meant that orthodox seed-raising techniques gave problems.  Seeds were sown in a seed tray in proprietary seed compost. The seeds needed warmth to germinate, which I supplied by putting them in my utility room on a rack over the central heating boiler.  The utility room is very dark, so when the seedlings emerged I needed to move them to a lighter place, my unheated greenhouse,  quickly.  The greenhouse was still too cold for the as yet un-germinated seeds in the batch to germinate. I ended up pricking out individual seedlings as they germinated, and in the process distributing damp compost all over the utility room - not ideal.

The moral is you need to be able to deal with seedlings individually rather than in batches.  Next time I plan to germinate the seeds in my salad seed  sprouter when I'll at least be able to catch them immediately they start to sprout and put  them into small module trays with minimal mess.

With hindsight I realise I started them too early.  Here in Gloucestershire the beginning of May was definitely too soon as they need light and warmth to grow, both of which were in short supply.  I'll wait until the very end of May or even early June next year unless we get a warm spring, in which case earlier might be OK. 

Growing conditions

Soya beans are said to like warm, sunny growing conditions and, last spring being so cold, I was dubious about their chances outside.  I ended up planting them in my new poly-tunnel which only went up at the beginning of July.  By the time  the plants went in the ground they were rather drawn and leggy, having been grown on in less than ideal conditions.  At that point I'd also run out of garden compost for soil enrichment, so the little bean plants went into my very light, nutrient-hungry, sandy soil with only a scattering of pelleted chicken manure to help them on their way.  Despite all this I was able to pick fresh soya beans by late summer - enough for several meals. 

Varieties suitable for UK conditions

Ustie, the Thompson and Morgan variety I grew, has now been replaced by a new variety, Elena, said to have more even germination, better standing ability and earlier and higher yields.  They are both white-seeded varieties bred for drying and next year I'll be trialling them side by side, along with the green-seeded Envy, available from Suffolk Herbs, a variety bred for eating fresh.  Weather permitting, they'll be planted outside once all danger of frost is past..

Culinary Use

The pods are quite small, holding at most four beans and more often only two or three.  They are also quite difficult to get into - you have to steam or blanch the pods in boiling water for a couple of minutes before you can open them to get the beans out, and then cook the beans some more until they are tender.  On the whole I think it's  worth the effort as they're very tasty.  I used them both as a bean salad in vinaigrette and also in stir fries.   They'd be good in an oriental salad dressing too.  Even though I grew a `drying' variety, I didn't bother drying them as I don't like dried soya beans. Picked when still green, they were perfectly OK fresh.

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Catherine Mason http://catherine-mason.com/
If it proves possible to grow them well here, that would be very good news as they're such a good source of protein which is often imported over big distances.  Another front on which to attack food miles...  ]]> tag:catherine-mason.co.uk,2008:/carbon-descent-food//8.25 2008-01-14T07:27:19Z 2008-11-16T16:47:13Z

Catherine Mason http://catherine-mason.com/

• Produce food  locally to where it's consumed and drastically reduce or even eliminate food miles.  This means eating what is in season and growing some of your own if possible.  
• Focus on cooking and food-preservation methods that use the least possible amount of energy.
• Eat lower down the food chain - use productive land mainly to grow food for people rather than animals, thus avoiding idiocies such as digging up rainforest to grow soya to feed to cows!
• Avoid chemical inputs such as artificial fertilizers and pesticides that have taken lots of energy to produce and distribute and are of questionable value anyway.

Enjoy all of the above!  Growing your own is a blast, as is low-energy cooking!  I also get a lot of pleasure from making compost (call me sad if you like).  Eating food that's in season makes you feel more in touch with the cycles of the earth and you get the pleasure of anticipation and a sense of being part of something bigger... 

 Fortunately there are still people alive who can remember things like digging for victory during the second world war.  Cherish them and pick their brains until they scream!

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