The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Grower's Guide: Steve Sando's 50 Favorite Varieties PDF
Preview The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Grower's Guide: Steve Sando's 50 Favorite Varieties
, .... v ' s ... :0' 50 . AV'O ,.• T ,VA,RI : I . S The RANCHO GORDO HEIRLOOM BEAN GROWER'S GUIDE The RANCHO GORDO HEIRLOOM BEAN GROWER'S GUIDE STEVE SANDO'S 50 FAVORITE VARIETIES TIMBER PRESS PORTLAND· LONDON Photographs by Emma Alpaugh unless otherwise indicated. Design: Jane JeszecklJigsaw, www.jigsawseattle.com Copyright © ~Oll by Steve Sando. All rights reserved. Published in by Timber Press, Inc. ~Oll The Haseltine Building 133 S.W. Second Avenue, Suite 450 Portland, Oregon 97~04-35~7 www.timberpress.com The Quadrant ~ 135 Salusbury Road London NW6 6RJ www.timberpress.co.uk Printed in China Library of Congress Cataloging-in -Publication Data Sando, Steve. The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Grower's Guide: Steve Sando's 50 Favorite Varieties / Steve Sando. - First pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60469-10~-3 1. Beans- Heirloom varieties- West (U.S) ~. Cooking (Beans) I. Title. SB3~7.S~6 ~Oll 635'·65-dc~~ A catalog record for this book is also available from the British Library. Dedicated with love to my two sons, Robert and Nico J L.N662 • • 6 Contents Introduction: My Love Affair with Beans 9 1. Heirloom Beans: Some Basic Bean Botany 13 2. Beans of the New World and Beyond 19 3. Growing the World's Most Delicious Beans 33 4. 50 Heirloom Beans You Should Know 45 5. Cooking Beans, Rancho Gordo Style 147 155 Recipes Resources 172 For Further Reading 174 Conversion Tables 175 Acknowledgments 176 Index 177 About the Author 180 7 THALASSA SKINNER, CULTURE MAGAZINE 8 Introduction: My Love Affair with Beans BEANS: WHO KNEW? I started out growing heirloom tomatoes in the Napa Valley. After sever al careers behind desks and microphones, working outside and growing vegetables from seed was about the most thrilling thing I had ever done. My two small boys helped, mostly by getting in the way and reminding me how much I loved them-only making for a better workplace, in my mind. The whole process overwhelmed me, but I have the distinct memory of one afternoon toward the end of summer, sitting cross -legged in front of a cherry tomato plant. My youngest son, Nico, was sitting on my lap wearing nothing but droopy diapers. In the heat and silence, the two of us ravaged the poor tomato plant and ate every last ripe, red tomato. This was the pay off. After our "session," I looked and Nico's mouth was still full of blood red tomatoes and the dried juice and a few assorted seeds covered his cherubic torso. He couldn't speak yet, but everything was telling me this was a good career move, if I could somehow make it work. Farmers markets in Napa are not a year-round thing. They start in March and end in November. Despite being in California, Napa has pipe freezing cold winters and mostly mild springs and the soil is just not ready to produce great tomatoes until August. At the same time I was consider ing how to make this career move work, I was discovering dried heirloom beans, mostly from the Seed Savers Exchange and Native Seeds/SEARCH. Both groups are nonpronts and offer beans as seeds as well as by the pound. I remember eating my nrst bowl of Rio Zape beans and thinking I'd just tasted my future. When I started out, I wasn't allowed to sell at my local Napa farmers market. Due to local politics, the management wanted to keep the market small and clubby. I had mostly tomatoes and the beans came later, but I didn't understand the politics or the culture of small town farmers markets. I thought I should be able to grow something locally and then sell it, but I guess it's more complicated than that. Unable to sell in Napa, I made my way up the Napa Valley to Yountville and their considerably smaller farm ers market where I sold my tomatoes and later the beans. Now, you really need a large market to sell beans because most of the customers are there 9
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