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A Passion for Beans--Really!
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An Article by Richard Mann
A light-hearted introduction to beans, those delicious, life-sustaining little packages of near-perfect nutrition. How we love our beans!





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Beans are a passion with me. Not a big, over-riding, life-changing, mind-altering sort of thing, you understand, but a passion nevertheless. I've only been fooling around in the kitchen, pretending to be a cook, for a half-dozen years or so, but once I found myself seeking wonderful things to cook, I gravitated immediately to beans. Who wouldn't?

The humble bean is a marvel of bio-engineering. Inside its hard-shelled, self-protective skin lurk life-sustaining carbohydrates, fiber, and protein. Everyone knows that if you can't get actual meat, beans (along with a little grain) will provide the necessary protein to keep you going. They're fat-free and won't even pump up your cholesterol. Beans are about as nutritious as vegetables get.

Beans last a long, long time. Consider the Anasazi bean, a close cousin to the popular pinto bean. It was unknown until ancient beans were found in the Anasazi ruins in the Southwest. Since the Anasazi disappeared over a thousand years ago, these were old beans. Talk about effective food storage! These beans germinated and grew, giving life to new generations of this ancient bean. Beans are tough little buggers. You have to love them.

Beans taste good. Oh, you'll find a few grinch-like souls around who eschew the things, but most people find beans to be pleasant, tasty fare. Some of us go a little further and develop a passion for nature's perfectly packaged food.

Beans are versatile. You can make almost anything out of beans. I don't encourage this odd behavior, but you can make bean cakes, bean drinks, bean pies, and even bean fudge. They tell me they taste good; I'm willing to take their word. But us normal folks can make all sorts of delicious things with beans, from simple bean soup (one of my favorite things in all the world) to baked beans, from three-bean salads to cassoulets. If it gots beans in it, I likes it, as Popeye might once have said. (Actually, he had a thing for spinach; I'm the one who loves beans.)

Beans come in multitude of varieties. Common beans seen every day include pinto, kidney, red, great northern, white, lima, black, and navy. Less commonly known beans include cranberry, cannelloni, fava, Anasazi, garbanzo, and a whole list of fun beans you can buy from specialty retailers. We won't include the jelly bean, of course. (Guess what my favorite candy is?)

Each bean has its own distinctive flavor, its own texture, and its own special uses. This is where the fun begins: we can make literally hundreds, even thousands, of wonderful dishes from these great little sources of perfect nutrition. I'm collecting bean recipes, making bean dishes right and left.

I'm even running a couple of websites devoted to the bountiful bean and its fans. Bean Lovers, on Suite 101 (where this article originally appeared) will guide you to all the significant bean sites on the Web. Here at Bean Bible, we'll concentrate on giving you the information directly. Look for lots of recipes, cookbook reviews, bean product reviews, and every other sort of beaniness I can come up with.

Oh, by the way, the fact that I'm a CPA--an accountant--has nothing to do with my love for beans, even if accountants are known far and wide as "bean counters." I hardly ever count beans. I just cook and eat them.

(Note to editor: Do I get extra points for writing an entire article about beans without ever once using the phrase, "musical fruit"?)


Copyright © 2001 Richard Mann. All rights reserved. Please contact the author for permission to use this article (includes reprints in mailing lists, newsletters, and/or any other purpose/format) and give details of its proposed use. Any and all use of this article in any way without permission is prohibited under copyright law. Acceptable use: Please feel free to link to this page.


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The Bean BookThe Bean Book
Roy F. Guste, Jr., former proprietor of Antoine's Restaurant in New Orleans and noted cookbook author, has put together this wonderful collection of recipes for bean dishes from around the world. Everything you can imagine is in here; the variety of recipes is amazing. It includes "light" versions and a full nutritional analysis of each recipe. How does Bourbon and Black Bean Pie sound? Highly recommended by Bean Bible!

Fix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with your Slow CookerFix-It and Forget-It Cookbook: Feasting with your Slow Cooker
We usually feature bean cookbooks here, but this superb slow cooker (crock pot) cookbook has at least a hundred great bean recipes in it! My wife brought it home and I'm sold on it. The "Bean Main Dishes" section alone has 53 recipes. Recipes are short, simple, tasty, and don't use weird ingredients that you don't already have. And, while I'm excited about the bean recipes (the Sausage Bean Quickie will be the first one we try), the rest of the recipes also look wonderful. The cover says it's a "National #1 bestselling cookbook!" I believe it. Highly recommended by Bean Bible!

Easy Beans: Fast and Delicious Bean, Pea, and Lentil Recipes, Second Editon
Now in a new and improved second edition, this easy-to-use and highly popular cookbook makes cooking with beans as easy as it can possibly be. No soaking beans, no complex recipes with wild, improbable ingredients. The book lives up to its promise of easy, tasty, fun recipes. Highly recommended by Bean Bible!


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