Last night for dinner, Becky and I ate our first green beans of the summer. The first meal of any produce from our garden is a memorable experience, and this one was no exception.
Those first bites were the culmination of the effort we started weeks ago when we got up close and personal with the dirt; when we dropped each seed into the holes we had poked in the soil; when we watered the buried beans. And then, after our initial effort and some occasional weeding, we waited for nature to take its course. We understand you don’t really grow food, you just participate in its creation.
Green beans are not the first crops we have consumed this season. Asparagus, lettuces and radishes are early crops we have harvested. And we recently found some zucchini hiding under wide leaves, as well. But in my mind, green beans are somehow different. Along with tomatoes, they represent the high summer. I know the season has arrived when I can fill a daily basket with green beans and red tomatoes. (Alas, ours tomatoes are not quite ready yet.).
It turns out, many gardeners feel the same way. Green beans are up there with tomatoes as the most often planted in food gardens. They are relatively easy to grow and produce lots of produce. Green beans are a good source of fiber and protein, are very low in fat, and are rich in healthful nutrients. A website called World’s Healthiest Foods lists green beans as one of the, well, world’s healthiest foods. Yes, you get a lot of bang for your garden buck when you grow green beans.
Although green beans are today enjoyed all over the world (China is the world’s largest producer of the food), common beans have their origin in Central America. Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) were spread north and south by native tribes and were eventually cultivated across both continents by the time the Europeans arrived. Columbus found beans growing in fields when he arrived in what was likely the Bahamas. I wonder if they were green beans.
Green beans are usually classified as “bush” beans (short or “dwarf” bushy plants) or “pole” beans (climbing, twisting vines which may require a pole or trellis). Pole beans also figure into another idea European settlers got from the New World when they learned the Native-American technique of combining them with corn and squash to create the “three sisters.”
Green beans are sometimes referred to by common names such as“snap beans” because of the sound they make when picked and prepared, and “string beans” owing to a fibrous sting running along the pod. Botanist Calvin Keeney, the “father of the stringless bean,” figured our a way to remove the string through selective breeding back in 1894, and I thank him for that.
Thinking about beans has made me think about the word “bean” itself.
Sometimes you will see the term “French beans” or “French-cut beans.” This is not a specific bean but a technique for slicing beans. French beans are often listed on menus at upscale restaurants. Sometime restauranteurs get even fancier and offer them as “haricot vert ” which literally is “bean green” in French.
All of that has absolutely nothing to do with “French bean” which is not a bean at all, but a commonly used crossword puzzle clue. The answer is “tete,” which is the French word for “head” as in the thing that sits on your shoulders. “Bean” being a slangy American term for one’s noggin makes the clue quite clever, I think. But I digress.
Becky and I are looking forward to the next few weeks when we will be enjoying green beans from our garden as well as those soon-to-be-ripened tomatoes. Ah, summertime.
