Becky Blogs Beans

Writer/cook embarks on a year-long online blog of heirloom legumes, featuring a different bean and recipe each week

St. Louis, MO (PRWEB) March 17, 2008 -- Just as a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, one woman's quest to develop 52 recipes began with a hill of beans.

Becky Pastor, professional writer and amateur chef, has launched Becky and the Beanstock (www.beckyandthebeanstock.com) to document her weekly exploration of rare, but available, heirloom beans. Each entry explores a different legume, and is accompanied by an original recipe designed around that particular vegetable's defining characteristics.

I'm not aiming to be didactic

"Most people experience an incredibly narrow food chain," said Pastor, "and so we're losing touch with beans and many other vegetables that have historical significance, enormous health benefits, and fantastic flavor."

While most people can name five or six kinds of beans, and major grocery stores carry about a dozen varieties, there are about many hundreds of beans grown in the United States today, although the vast majority are grown only in small home and preservation gardens, according to Diane Ott Whealy, co-founder of Seed Saver's Exchange.

Among the listed legumes have been tepary beans, French green lentils, and moon beans. Recipes include Winter Celebration Salad, Hutterite White Bean Soup, and Tepary Bean Whipped Hummus.

The site also features pages devoted to seed saving, methods for cooking dry beans, and the Global Seed Vault in Svalbard, Norway. "I'm not aiming to be didactic," said Pastor, "but there's a lot to learn from seeds. I hope that when my readers hold an heirloom bean in their hands, they're able to understand its importance, historically, ecologically, and gustatorily."

"This blog is a celebration of food," Pastor explains on the site. "It's about hailing the beauty and diversity in the plant world and the joy of cooking and eating with friends, and the stories that emerge from those experiences…It's about holding onto the things that matter, those bits and pieces that will become our own history."

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