The Sorana Bean. From Tuscany, With Love

Last autumn I was in Italy for the first time in way too long. This was the funny time when we all thought this covid thing was waning and we were heading back to normal. Weren’t we cute?

Regular followers of Rancho Gordo know of our love and admiration for the amazing Judy Witts Francini. She is a powerhouse of knowledge about the Italian kitchen and nothing makes her happier than sharing her secrets. She has many.

Judy arranged for me to meet with some members of the cooperative that is keeping the Sorana bean production going. Unable to meet our demands with Italian production, we of course grew their seed on the West Coast and market them as Marcella, to honor the Italian producers (and my hero, Marcella Hazan).

We have space here so we just let the bean plants grow as they will. Sorano is very limited (which is why they can’t increase production) and every inch is maximized.

Judy and I met each other in Firenze in the early 1980s. She was just starting out with her tours and classes and I was a clueless but well-fed tourist. I’d end up moving to Milano in 1988 and actually became the host of a radio show, Mister Lucky Cocktail, for a local jazz station.

In the states, almost every aspect of bean production is automated. Not in Sorana! Here Maurizio goes down every row with a little garden scooter and handpicks the beans and tosses them into a bucket for threshing later.

We use a moisture meter to decide when to harvest. Rita explains to me that they just make sure they are well-dried before storing. They would rather overdry them a bit in order to avoid molding beans since most Italians soak their beans anyway.

I was a little nervous to meet Rita and Maurizio as we were growing their beans stateside, but they were fine with that. There is a terroir that can’t be replicated and we didn’t call them Sorana , so there was no confusion.

I think there was a little disbelief that someone would match their passion for beans but we’ve become fast friends and I can’t wait to visit them again.

Afterward, we went to the local restaurant, Ristorante da Carla, to enjoy the fruits of their labor. All the beans are cooked al fiasco, which is in a glass carafe with a narrow top that cooks the beans perfectly.

The highlight was the beans served over a piece of toast that had been thoroughly saturated with fabulous Tuscan olive oil, topped with a piece of lardo, which is cured pork fat (not the same as lard), which on its own isn’t so appealing, but gently melting over warm beans is a thing to be remembered always.

In case you had doubts, Bean People are the best people!

If you are considering a trip to Italy, you would be well-served by getting in touch with Judy. She can arrange to help you get to Sorana, as well as anywhere in Italia that you fancy, and really, for me having Judy sitting across a dinner table means I’ll eat well, have some laughs, and remember why Italy is one of my favorite places on the planet.

Divina Cucina on the web (with contact information)

These great photos were taken by artist Kelly Borsheim, someone as nice as she is talented.

Happy Harvest: Frijolon Gris

It has been a long time since I played in the garden. I have not been a good steward of my land and as we got busier and busier over the holiday season, I left my precious Oaxacan runner beans to fend for themselves. We experienced a very wet season, followed by several nights with freezing temperatures and the mornings have been foggy. You would have thought my forgotten bean crop would be a goner, but you’d be wrong.

Mid-February and this is my harvest.

I looked and I saw a few funky pods. When I opened them, the beans were fine. I ran into the house to get my incredibly wonderful ayate de ixtle, which is a large harvesting sheet, perfect for beans, made from the fiber of the maguey plant. This prized piece is from Hidalgo and takes hours to make. It’s especially clever because you can fold up the four corners and wear it like a backpack and not lose a single bean.

Dirt and dust can slip through but the harvest remains intact.

I picked the obvious pods but the more I picked, the more I found. They are good at hiding and once you get the rhythm of their growth patterns, you find a lot of them.

The pods looked very funky and many of them split open as I threw them unto the ayate. You can see that I was also harvesting a little borage with its pretty flowers.

You can pick up the ayate from the four sides and make a sack. I hung this and hit it with a stick and the rest of the beans came popping out of their pods. When you open the ayate de ixtle back up, you can easily pick up the spent pods and these will obviously go into the compost bin. The beans remaining are amazingly clean.

This is a shot of the plant last October. You can eat the flowers raw or cooked.

The bean is Frijolon Gris, a grey runner bean (Phaseolus coccineus) from Oaxaca that clearly has acclimated to Northern California. The hummingbirds love it and they were nice enough to leave me a lot of beans. I also suspect that many of the early beans fell into the soil and they’ll be naturalized but I’ll keep some of these for planting in the spring, just in case. I would guess you would have similar results with any of the runner beans, like Scarlet Runners, Ayocote Negro, etc. but these are particularly pretty. Lacking an authentic ayate de ixtle, I bet you would have great results with an old sheet.

The inevitable question is probably how to get the beans or the ayate de ixtle and for now, sadly, the answer has to be whipping out your passport and going on a Mexican adventure. Now that the COVID crisis is easing, I can’t think of a better way to celebrate.

Jesús Helguera, Our Calendar Artist

One of the first things I did when I started Rancho Gordo was to offer free calendars every year featuring almost exclusively the art of Jesús Helguera. I love the idealized, often policially incorrect, images of post-revolutionary Mexico. There are some real problems but there’s a clear sense of Helguera’s patriotism, and loads of campy good fun.

I asked Karla from our customer service department to do some research on Helguera so we all could know a little more about him. She used an uncredited book I have, Jesus Helguera (1989, Galas de Mexico) for much of the information. – Steve Sando

The Jesús Helguera Story
by Karla A. Moreno

Renowned Mexican painter Jesús Enrique Emilio de la Helguera Espinoza was born on May 28, 1910 in Chihuahua, and spent his early childhood in Mexico City and Cordoba, Veracruz. When Jesús was 7, his Spanish-born economist father moved the family to Ciudad Real, Spain, to escape the effects of the Mexican Revolution.

Rancho Gordo owner, Steve Sando, loves this image so much, he brings it back every few years on our calendars. It’s the only repeated image we’ve used so far.

During his elementary school years, Jesús began to develop his lifelong interest in art. He created murals with scenes from literature, illustrated his history lessons, and painted large-scale rural maps. Even at a young age, his teachers recognized his devotion to painting; one instructor made him responsible for his school’s art class at the age of 9. He completed his high school studies at the Escuela de Artes y Oficios in Madrid. At the age of 14, he was admitted to the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes, and later studied at the famous Academia de San Fernando.Helguera met Julia Gonzales Llanos in an art class; she served as a model and inspiration for many of his paintings. The couple married and had two children, Fernando and Maria Luisa. Contemporaries described Helguera as outgoing, sincere, and affable — a loving husband and protective father.

La Bamba

Helguera worked in Madrid and Barcelona as an illustrator for books, magazines, and comics for many years. In 1938, due to the Spanish Civil War and its resulting economic issues, Helguera returned to Veracruz. Capitalizing on the current vogue for mural-style work, the tobacco company Cigarrera La Moderna hired Helguera to produce artwork for its cigar boxes and calendars. His works during this era display his fascination with both indigenous mysticism and Catholic religion, and feature an idealized, romantic aesthetic. His heroic images of Aztec royalty, smoldering volcanoes, and smoky-eyed women inspired generations of imitators.

La Leyenda de los Volcanes (The Legend of the Volcanoes)

In 1940, Helguera painted his most famous work, La Leyenda de los Volcanes (The Legend of the Volcanoes), inspired by Aztec stories of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. In 1954, he joined Imprenta Galas de Mexico, a large printer of calendar artwork. At Galas, he was known for spending long stretches in his studio, painting whenever inspiration found him, regardless of the hour.

Helguera worked until his death in December 1971. His last painting, Las Manañitas — showing a gallant caballero serenading a radiant maiden perched on the sill of a bougainvillea-covered window — now hangs in one of Mexico City’s leading cultural sites, the Museo Soumaya of Fundación Carlos Slim.

If you ever needed any help in deciding how hip and great Linda Ronstadt is, here’s proof.

Helguera was largely unrecognized by fine-arts culture in his lifetime; not until 1985 did he finally received formal recognition from Mexico’s Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes. Throughout the years, Helguera’s works have been broadly pirated, reproduced (not always faithfully) on ceramics, stone, metal, and wood. Millions of copies of Helguera’s works have hung proudly in countless Mexican homes, both in Mexico and in the United States, and for thousands, through the annual Rancho Gordo calendar.

One of our most frequently asked questions is, “When do you release the calendars?”
Unless there’s some weird problem, we start shipping calendars with all of our holiday orders starting the Friday after Thanksgiving. This year (2021), we may start earlier because if anticipated crazy shipping times. We keep including them in all of our packages until they run out, generally in February but some years it can be as early as December. First come, first served! – Steve

Fennel and Thyme Roasted Beans

This is a fine recipe from Thomasina Meyers in The Guardian. I asked the staff if they would make it and it was as good as it sounds, although calling it a cassoulet seems like a push. Our Creative Director, Rachel Padilla, ended up being the chef. I love fennel but I tend to overcook it and caramalize it. Here, it’s fully cooked and fresh-tasting with just the hint of anise. I would go easier on the breadcrumbs and keep the focus on the beans and the fennel.

Rachel used our Alubia Blanca but Cassoulet, Royal Coronas, Ayocote Blanco, or any good white bean will work. The original recipe calls for canned beans but we know better, don’t we?

In addition to actual cooked beans instead of a can, Rachel used regular garlic and skipped the sugar mixed with breadcrumbs. I asked her if she’d consider this a variation on a cassoulet. “No way. A casserole, yes, but it’s not cassoulet.”

An earthenware bowl with the savory casserole featuring Rancho Gordo's Alubia Blanca beans.

Garlic, fennel and thyme cassoulet
Recipe by Thomasina Miers in The Guardian

Prep 15 min
Cook 1 hr 30 min
Serves 4

3 heads new-season garlic (Note: Rachel used 2 cloves regular garlic)
3 medium fennel bulbs, trimmed (about 800g net weight)
6 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
4 shallots, peeled and quartered through the stem
100g smoked pancetta or lardon cubes (optional)
2 bay leaves
¼ bunch thyme, picked
Zest of 1 lemon
2 x 400g tin cannellini or haricot beans, drained and rinsed
4 cups cooked Alubia Blanca, or other white bean
150ml white wine
250ml chicken stock
For the crisp topping
100g dried breadcrumbs
20g caster sugar
60g parmesan, finely grated

Heat the oven to 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6. Bash open the heads of garlic and remove the outer layers. Top and tail the fennel, remove the outer leaves if they are looking old (reserve the thick stalks for stocks or salads), then cut the bulbs in half and cut across into thick slices.

Heat a large, wide saute pan over a high heat and add two tablespoons of the oil. Saute half the garlic, fennel and shallots in the fat until rich and golden on all sides, then season generously and transfer to a wide baking dish large enough to hold everything later. Add another two tablespoons of oil and repeat with the rest of the vegetables (depending on the size of your pan, you may have to do this in more than two batches).

Saute the lardons in the same pan and saute for about five minutes, until they release their fat and turn pale gold, then transfer to the vegetable dish.

Scatter over the bay leaves, thyme (save some for the top) and lemon zest, then add the beans, mix well, pour in the wine and stock, and season.

Toss the breadcrumbs, sugar and parmesan with the reserved thyme leaves and scatter on top. Drizzle with the remaining oil, cover with foil and bake for 45 minutes. Uncover, bake for 15-20 minutes more, until the top is golden, crusty and looking tempting, then remove and leave to rest for 10 minutes. Serve with a salad, or alongside a plate of sausages or roast chicken legs, and lots of fresh bread to mop up all the juices.

A Grated Salad

I love salad but the act of making one on a busy night is often not a pleasure for me. This will sound insane but the lettuce bugs me the most. I refuse to buy it bagged and cleaning it isn’t that hard but it’s a step that can lead me to abandon the salad if the stars aren’t aligned.

I have several tricks up my sleeve and one is my box grater. I had a large jicama and after peeling it, I grated it and made a salad with orange pieces, red onion, our Oregano Indio, and cilantro. I added olive oil and salt. No vinegar was needed with the citrus.

I would do this again in a heatbeat. I can’t wait to tell Republic of Salad‘s Emily Nunn about this and see what she thinks about the grater as a tool for salads. Hey. You get your kicks where you can.

A Last Meal al fresco Before the Rains: Fish & Shrimp with Alubia Blanca

Here in Napa the rains are late. We’re nervous but we hear there’s a big storm coming in. Typically, it’s sunny and clear, and hard to imagine today. I took advantage of one last chance to social distance and break bread with my neighbor, Connie.

The inspiration for this came from the book on Tuscan coastal cooking, Acquacotta, by Emiko Davies (Hardie Grant, 2017). The original recipe calls for clams and no fish, but I had fresh prawns and halibut on hand. I was also cooking beans and well, you know, beans.

Any of our white beans will work, except maybe Marcellas. They would be fine but I suspect they’d be too delicate and their charm would be lost, or worse, they’d just fall apart.

The stew can be made ahead a day or two up to the point of adding the fish and prawns. You can reheat the pot the next day and once simmering, add the seafood.

Fish & Shrimp Stew with Alubia Blanca

1/4 cup olive oil
2 yellow onions, thinly sliced into half-moons
2 stalks celery, thinly sliced

Salt
2 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
1 teaspoon Rancho Gordo New Mexican Red Chile Powder
1 large can (700g)
whole peeled tomatoes
1 1/2 cups cooked Rancho Gordo Alubia Blanca or other white heirloom beans

1 to 2 pounds halibut or another sturdy white fish, cut into cubes
1 pound shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 bunch flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
4 to 6 thick slices stale (or toasted) rustic bread

Lemon wedges for serving

Serves 4 to 6

In a large pot over low heat, warm the oil. Add the onions, celery, and a small pinch of salt; saute, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are soft, about 20 minutes. Don’t allow the onions to brown. Add the garlic and chile powder; cook, stirring, for a minute.

Empty the can of tomatoes into a bowl and with your hands, break up the tomatoes into small pieces. Add to the simmering pot along with 2 cups of water. Stir and gently simmer for 30 to 40 minutes.

Add the beans. Check for seasoning and add salt to taste. Bring the pot back to a simmer and add the fish and shrimp. Cook until done, 2 to 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and stir in the parsley.

Place a piece of bread in the bottom of each bowl. Carefully ladle the stew over the bread. Serve with lemon wedges.

This Is Why We Can’t Relax

I just received this press release from No More Deaths. We add a 5% “tariff” to all our imports from the Rancho Gordo-Xoxoc Project and then match this as a donation, and then some. I can not believe that humanitarian aid has turned into a political issue, but here we are and this is how the government chooses to spend our tax dollars. – Steve Sando

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Military Style Raid: Border Patrol detains 30+ people receiving care at humanitarian aid station

Agents descended upon the camp with an armored vehicle, ATVs, dozens of trucks, chasing and detaining people who had sought out respite from the heat
August 1st, 2020
Contact:
media@nomoredeaths.org
(520) 240-1641
Arivaca, AZ: Around sunset on July 31st, US Border Patrol raided No More Deaths’ humanitarian aid station, Byrd Camp, detaining over thirty people who were receiving medical care, food, water, and shelter from the 100+ degree heat. In a massive show of force, Border Patrol, along with the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), descended on the camp with an armored vehicle, three ATVS, two helicopters, and an estimated 24 marked and unmarked vehicles. 

Agents refused to show a warrant upon entry, and were not wearing masks. For two hours, in darkness, they detained and chased people receiving care while a Border Patrol cameraman filmed the scene. The day before, agents had entered the property without a warrant and detained one person receiving care. Border Patrol then set up 24-hour surveillance around the perimeter, deterring anyone else from entering the camp to seek help. Last night’s military style raid on the aid station is a clear example of Border Patrol’s deadly pattern of interfering with humanitarian aid. Many No More Deaths volunteers work as EMTs, paramedics, nurses, and doctors. Volunteers are trained to respect the autonomy of individuals receiving care — as is standard practice in the medical field, they only call 911 and Border Patrol with patient consent. All persons at camp had been medically evaluated, were stable, and were receiving continuous care.

The initial detention and surveillance of Byrd Camp was set up just 24 hours after No More Deaths released emails from a FOIA request revealing the role of BORTAC — the tactical unit recently mobilized against protestors in Portland — and the Border Patrol Union’s role in a 2017 raid of the same aid station.Border Patrol previously raided Byrd camp in 2017, which predates Dr. Scott Warren’s January 2018 arrest for providing humanitarian aid to two individuals. Warren was arrested just hours after No More Deaths released a report detailing Border Patrol’s interference with humanitarian aid, along with a video that went viral showing agents destroying water gallons. The message is clear: expose Border Patrol abuses, face retaliation“Yesterday, Border Patrol harmed thirty people in irreparable ways. On a daily basis those who migrate through the Arizona desert are targeted, terrorized, detained, and deported.” Said Dr. Scott Warren, “Last night we witnessed these tactics deployed against people who sought medical care and relief at our Byrd Camp aid station. As always when humanitarian aid in the borderlands is targeted, those who seek care are the ones that face the brunt of these violent escalations.”

I Apologize

This will be too little, too late, but my inability to address this doesn’t make it any less important. I’ve been working on this post in my mind for two years. I struggled with a justification for publishing a blog on racism. I am unqualified, but I do have to let the world know that I stand with those protesting the racism that led to the death of George Floyd. I have no confidence that his murderers will be held accountable in the same way he would be if the roles were reversed.

I was one of those happy liberals who saw the inauguration of Barack Obama as president as a turning point. There would be no turning back. This was indeed a great country if we could get past our history of slavery and racism to elect a black president. Racism itself would be dying with a few old stubborn confederates in the south and a bright new day lay ahead for all of us. We could work on real issues, hand in hand, and really call this country America.

I was an idiot.

I truly had no idea. Granted, I didn’t dig very deep but it felt good to know that what was left of racism was slowly dying. You would think as a native Californian I would be more aware of our own transgressions against African Americans, the indigenous tribes, the Mexican immigrants, and even the Mexican Californios that were here before we entered the United States. I knew the legacies of the missions were a very mixed bag but surely it was nothing compared to what went on in Mississipi and in our bright new era, it wasn’t much of a concern.

Again, I was an idiot.

I love old movies. Musicals, particular. I was telling a friend about how the world was just better than when you could break into songs to solve your woes. He’s an Indian immigrant, and he said, not if you’re brown or black. There were no options in my fantasies for people of color other than being the shoeshine boy in the train station scenes. Or maids. Or nothing. I thought he was being sensitive and then I thought about how invisible gays were. Persnickety Edward Everett Horton was about it and he was always married in these films. I was invisible, too, on a key level. I thought about how in the 1970s, coming of age with Charles Nelson Reilly or Paul Lynde as the only role models I had as a young gay man and the idea filled me with terror, even though I am now sure they were lovely fellows doing the best they could. What if I had seen someone like me on the screen or TV? How wonderful would a role model have been?

I remember a black man being interviewed on the radio and he described walking down a tony Washington D.C. suburban street, well-dressed and whistling Mozart, and hearing the click of car locks as scared neighbors passed him by. I thought this was silly and frankly, I doubted it was true. Now, I’m sure it was a reality. Watching scared privileged white people call the cops on blacks for using a public park or selling lemonade is too wild to contemplate yet there are the videos. And those white women probably think they mean well, listen to NPR, and voted for Obama.

I have no solutions. I have no real insight. I think this period of time is about listening and helping if I can. One way to help is to speak out, which I’m doing now. I know many of my friends, who would consider themselves allies, are silent, but it’s more because we are freaked out and don’t know what to do. This is white privilege. It’s uncomfortable, but we don’t have to be the solution. We don’t control everything. We need to listen and together be the solution. Saying you’re freaked out and lost is strength. Our silence can be interpreted as being complicit with the racists. Anything we do is too little, too late, but that doesn’t mean we do nothing.

So I start here and now with this: I apologize.

Emily Nunn on Beans and Health

Emily Nunn is one of my favorite writers. Her Comfort Food Diaries is a classic and her Twitter feed is essential reading. I asked her what she’s thinking about beans and health for the new year. – Steve

According to the food world, beans are having “a moment.” Well, pardon us, but beans—which are the world’s second most important food source, after grains/grasses— have been a mainstay in the Americas for centuries (and the Old World began cultivating and eating them about 10,000 years ago). There’s a very good reason for their longevity, too. Beans make the human body happy—and not in that fleeting I-just-ate-a-bag-of-Fritos way. According to Dawn Jackson Blatner, a Chicago RDN and author of “The Flexitarian Diet” and “Superfood Swap, “if you look at world nutrition, you’ll see that some of the healthiest countries consume beans as a part of their regular diet.” Beans are nutrient dense: they contain a cache of (plant) protein and fiber, vitamins and minerals (iron, zinc, potassium, and folate), and healthy phytochemicals and antioxidants that make them small but powerful disease fighters. “A balanced diet that includes beans may improve digestive health and decrease risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer,” she says. And for those of you who believe that lean meat is the only protein that will keep you at your fighting weight, Blatner adds: “Beans can keep you feeling full longer, which means greater appetite control. And in terms of calories (which are what matters when it comes to weight), they only have 125 per 1/2 cup.” Another plus: since beans, legumes, and pulses are a part of virtually every cuisine, there’s no lack of great recipes for preparing them. Bottom line: beans are not some crazy fad, but you’d almost have to be nuts not to eat them. 

(You can get cooking now with our recipes on our website. And for more nutrition-related bean facts, check out the Bean Institute)

Raw Beet Salad with White Beans, Pomegranate Seeds, and Black Walnuts

I used to hate beets with a passion. I found them to be the most disgusting food I knew. Then I tried borscht, with loads of sour cream, and I started to change my mind. This was followed by roasted beets and a little light went off in my head. Beets are good. Really good!

I am now a confirmed beet eater. I like them most roasted but I even like them boiled and for kicks, grated raw as in this salad.

The salad consists of grated beets, pomegranate seeds, toasted black walnuts, drained cooked white beans, oil, lemon juice, and chives. I’ve made this many times without the beans but I shared my passion for this on Twitter and I was asked about beans and I thought, why the hell not. I had cooked cassoulet (Tarbais) beans on hand. It was terrific.

I would serve this composed, as in the photo, but toss it well before actually eating. Every bite should be fresh, slightly tart, and thanks to the beans, a little creamy.