The Alvarez Organic Farm booth has stacks of colorful boxes of dried beans—red beans, kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, and butter beans, along with chickpeas, technically not a bean but still a member of the legume family to which beans belong.
These are to be savored. It’s quite an opportunity for us to be able to buy dried beans directly from the growers. The taste is fresher and the cooked consistency is superior to that of the beans we buy in stores.
Your health and dried beans
Americans eat about half the fiber we should. In recent years, research has continued to accumulate showing the benefits of fiber. Diets high in fiber help protect against colon cancer, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. People following a high fiber diet more readily keep their weight down. And there’s even evidence suggesting that people who consume significant amounts of legumes live longer.
Beans are one of the best sources of fiber. Depending on the type of bean, one cup of cooked beans delivers 11 to 17 grams of fiber. To put that in perspective, the average American consumes about 14 to 15 grams per day, much lower than the desired amount of 20-35 grams for optimum health.
Preparing the beans
Although beans burst with fiber, something we want and need, they can be somewhat off putting. You can’t just go home and prepare beans. They require pre-soaking for hours.
I find it easiest to wash the beans at night and then cover them with a few inches of water in the morning. They soak luxuriously all day. Late in the afternoon, I drain the beans, rinse them, and cook them in water over moderate heat for about 45 minutes to an hour. That’s all it takes for them to develop that sublimely satisfying soft-crisp texture. Then I give them a couple good rinses. Rinsing during the process helps to limit the gas problem.
Creating a bean salad
Market season is the best time to make bean salads, and now that we have real, fresh dried beans at our market, we have a situation that could not be better. What’s fun about making bean salads is that you can add whatever fresh vegetables you find at the market. There is no way to be wrong. Here’s a recipe from last week’s finds at the market:
1 to 1 ½ cups dried black beans; cooked as described above. While preparing the beans, I was struck by their beauty—some 
of them had turned to indigo.
While beans are cooking, combine:
½ green pepper, chopped
½ cup to 1 cup sugar snap peas, without the string
2 stalks celery, chopped (not yet at the market)
3 sprigs thyme, green parts chopped
Several sprigs parsley, leaves chopped
Cover the chopped vegetables with this dressing:
½ cup olive oil
½ tsp. red wine or sherry vinegar
½ tsp. award winning mustard from Aldrich at our market (I used “Apple Chipotle.”)
Salt, pepper
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
Stir in the beans. Let sit for 15 minutes or so, sample, and season to taste. I usually end up adding a little more lemon juice or vinegar. Beans do have remarkable capacity to absorb flavors. Refrigerate and eat as a side dish, as a main course for a light meal, or as a topping for a green salad.
