2022 Little Easy Bean Network - We Are Beans Without Borders

[heirloomgal]

I haven't paid a lot of attention to the main stream seed catalogs in a long time, but "French Beans" used to refer to the longer, Haricot Vert style green beans rather than our stubbier American varieties.

I also vaguely remember it being a style of store-bought, metal-canned bean where the beans were 'frenched'. I assume that's related to this sort of gizmo which I've seen, and may have had as a kid, but don't remember ever using.

Bean Frencher

Make French-Style Beans Easy! Gourmet cooks say French-style beans taste better and are more tender when cooked. Our bean frencher makes it easy by quickly turning several beans at once into 1/8 slivers. Stainless steel blades Aluminum gears and body 3-1/4H Clamps to surfaces up to 1...

www.lehmans.com

ETA. None of this is to disagree with the idea that europeans call P. vulgaris French. I've seen that on youtube as well. This was mostly just random flashes of memory that I felt like sharing.

Yes, this rings bell for me. I think here the 'French style green beans' expression meant a certain way it was cut. I think too the green beans were canned.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

"Frenching" with green beans means cutting off the tips.

 

[Jack Holloway]

Yes, this rings bell for me. I think here the 'French style green beans' expression meant a certain way it was cut. I think too the green beans were canned.

"French cut" green beans are basically julienned green beans. Don't know why they are called "French Cut", maybe that sounded more "foreign", thus "better" or maybe just more memorable as an advertising gimmick.

 

[flowerbug]

British culture in part does have canned beans and toast. So some exposure to dry and then cooked beans with tomahto sauce.

 

[Decoy1]

British culture in part does have canned beans and toast. So some exposure to dry and then cooked beans with tomahto sauce.

Baked beans in tomato sauce are pretty well the only way dried beans enter British culture, as you say. They have been enormously popular over the last few decades. Traditionally marketed by Heinz. They are canned in tomato sauce. For the average British person the beans never appear without having been poured out of a tin (can) and never without the tomato sauce they come canned in.

I think it is probably possible to find dried beans in larger supermarkets but they would be a minority purchase.

 

[Decoy1]

I haven't paid a lot of attention to the main stream seed catalogs in a long time, but "French Beans" used to refer to the longer, Haricot Vert style green beans rather than our stubbier American varieties.

I also vaguely remember it being a style of store-bought, metal-canned bean where the beans were 'frenched'. I assume that's related to this sort of gizmo which I've seen, and may have had as a kid, but don't remember ever using.

Bean Frencher

Make French-Style Beans Easy! Gourmet cooks say French-style beans taste better and are more tender when cooked. Our bean frencher makes it easy by quickly turning several beans at once into 1/8 slivers. Stainless steel blades Aluminum gears and body 3-1/4H Clamps to surfaces up to 1...

www.lehmans.com

ETA. None of this is to disagree with the idea that europeans call P. vulgaris French. I've seen that on youtube as well. This was mostly just random flashes of memory that I felt like

I think it is absolutely right that for a British person a French bean is thought of as the longer Haricot Vert type of bean, and traditionally this is the type that has been available fresh in greengrocers.

I also think that the usual explanation for the term ‘French’ is that this style of bean, as shown by the descriptors ‘filet’ and ‘haricot vert’, had become popular in France and then caught on in Britain. I’ve not been aware of it being anything to do with the style of cutting.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Baked beans in tomato sauce are pretty well the only way dried beans enter British culture, as you say. They have been enormously popular over the last few decades. Traditionally marketed by Heinz. They are canned in tomato sauce. For the average British person the beans never appear without having been poured out of a tin (can) and never without the tomato sauce they come canned in.

I think it is probably possible to find dried beans in larger supermarkets but they would be a minority purchase.

Well, not to get ethnic, but with the large number of people in the UK of Indian/Pakistani origin (who are big legume eaters) as well as Caribbean (not quite as big, but they have their pigeon peas and such.) there'd be a lot of importing of dried legumes for those markets.

I think a big portion of the lack may be classist. For a lot of European history, dried beans were considered a staple, but a staple of the peasants. They were what you ate when your weren't rich enough to be able to afford significant amounts of meat. If you were a noble, you probably wouldn't be eating a lot of beans (except possibly on fast days, and even then it'd be iffy.) since you could afford better.

Add on the fact that, until the common bean arrived in the 1500's the base bean for much of Europe would be the broad* (or fava) bean. which meant that, in some areas, there was a real chance of local beans being poisonous to you (i.e. due to favism). The advent of the common bean, which was both a bit safer (you still needed to cook them right, but once you did, they were safe) and rather more productive in many cases. would have eased this a little.

But come industrialization, as people's affluence went up a bit and the supply/price of meat and other such luxuries became more affordable, the number of people who needed to rely on dried beans got lower.

Even here in the U.S. dried beans were usually considered "poor man's food", same as maize. The richer you were, the less of them you'd eat. Being raised to elite status again is a pretty recent thing.

Green beans stayed acceptable because they WERE a scarce commodity (having a short season) and demonstrated conspicuous consumption (you were so rich you afford to pick your beans early when they were still a vegetable, rather than wait until they matured, dried, and became more nutritious.) Same story as peas.

*Which is why I maintain that Jack's beanstalk would have to be a fava bean; it'd be the only kind at that time (plus it actually CAN free stand as a stalk, which a common bean can't).

 

[Blue-Jay]

Kartoffelbohne, I heart you. So. Many. Beans.

This bean looks so very similar to one I grew this summer called Tresenjevec. Photos to come in November.

 

[flowerbug]

Baked beans in tomato sauce are pretty well the only way dried beans enter British culture, as you say. They have been enormously popular over the last few decades. Traditionally marketed by Heinz. They are canned in tomato sauce. For the average British person the beans never appear without having been poured out of a tin (can) and never without the tomato sauce they come canned in.

I think it is probably possible to find dried beans in larger supermarkets but they would be a minority purchase.

so now we have a clear mission.

the Heinz bean plant is huge. there's some videos of them making beans and of course a large percentage of those beans come from North American growers. they only want the white Navy Pea Beans which are acceptable as so many do eat them, but how do we get people to try other beans and other ways of eating them? one bean eater at a time...

 

[flowerbug]

Well, not to get ethnic, but with the large number of people in the UK of Indian/Pakistani origin (who are big legume eaters) as well as Caribbean (not quite as big, but they have their pigeon peas and such.) there'd be a lot of importing of dried legumes for those markets.

I think a big portion of the lack may be classist. For a lot of European history, dried beans were considered a staple, but a staple of the peasants. They were what you ate when your weren't rich enough to be able to afford significant amounts of meat. If you were a noble, you probably wouldn't be eating a lot of beans (except possibly on fast days, and even then it'd be iffy.) since you could afford better.

Add on the fact that, until the common bean arrived in the 1500's the base bean for much of Europe would be the broad* (or fava) bean. which meant that, in some areas, there was a real chance of local beans being poisonous to you (i.e. due to favism). The advent of the common bean, which was both a bit safer (you still needed to cook them right, but once you did, they were safe) and rather more productive in many cases. would have eased this a little.

But come industrialization, as people's affluence went up a bit and the supply/price of meat and other such luxuries became more affordable, the number of people who needed to rely on dried beans got lower.

Even here in the U.S. dried beans were usually considered "poor man's food", same as maize. The richer you were, the less of them you'd eat. Being raised to elite status again is a pretty recent thing.

i think these things are factors, but if the UK is generally cooler and damp then a dry bean harvest is not easy to accomplish without some dedication (aka labor). fresh green or wax beans are a different story entirely.

my own experience with growing beans in a somewhat non-optimal area has shown that it is possible but not always easy.