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Alexandru Flore helps next generation non-profit leaders.

 

A Good Pot of Beans

Whether cooking black beans or pintos, the key to flavor is plenty of onion, garlic and cilantro.

I didn't grow up in a bean-eating family. Our table was all about meat, mainly prime. When I became a vegetarian at age 21, I explained to people that there was no ideology behind my dietary shift -- I'd simply had my quota of meat.

Even lentils were outside our ken. I remember eating my first bowl of lentil soup at the home of a friend when I was about 8 years old, and immediately asking my mother if we could have that. I loved the flavor of the lentils, the bay leaf-scented broth, and especially the sliced frankfurters that -- I'm assuming it was Campbell's -- put in their canned lentil soup.

But I simply can't remember eating a bowl of beans until I began working with migrant farm workers in Michigan in the late '60s, eventually migrating with them back to the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas, where I lived from 1969 to 1971. There, and across the border in Mexico, I learned a lot about beans. I learned to cook them with lots of garlic, onion and cilantro, to refry them in a pan of hot melted lard and to mash them in the pan with a potato masher. My friend Alma Canales always added a few strips of bacon to her pot of pintos.

The day after I arrived in the valley, having driven a van straight from Ohio to Mission, Texas, with my fellow Head Start teachers, we crossed the border to return our colleague Juana to her mother's humble, one-room home in Rio Bravo, a dusty village south of the Rio Grande. Juana's mother graciously offered us beans from the earthenware bean pot that was sitting on her little

58 Comments

AMAZING STORY

13 months ago

nice

13 months ago

good post

13 months ago

Very important tips of beans. The beans I refer to here are the more common soup, chili, baking, salad and refry beans.

13 months ago

good post

13 months ago

nice post

11 months ago

nagyon finom lehetett, jó post

11 months ago

Nice post, thanks for sharing, post for healthy living.

11 months ago

nice

10 months ago

thanks for sharing tips about healthy living.

10 months ago

Habit in cooking can die hard, so I usually don't add the salt right away but let the beans simmer for about thirty minutes first. I have no practical explanation for why I do it this way..

10 months ago

very good food

10 months ago

Very useful,thanks

9 months ago

nice post... beans good for health

9 months ago

Very good article about beans http://posts.fanbox.com/qrdm4 ........ I rated, categorised and created an ad for it .

9 months ago

beans good for health

9 months ago

informative post.

9 months ago

nice one

9 months ago

The other herb was epazote, the Mexican herb that seems to tie all of the flavors and aromas together in a simmering pot of beans.

9 months ago

Is this your own personal story written Salex?

We make many types of beans as well and I add the ham for flavor. Also you know you if you want you can check off on this blog that no one can copy your work. Just go back to the edit and click the box so others will not be able to copy it. Unless of course you want it to be copied?

8 months ago

Nice post!keep posting....

8 months ago

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8 months ago

Habit in cooking can die hard, so I usually don't add the salt right away but let the beans simmer for about thirty minutes first. I have no practical explanation for why I do it this way.

7 months ago

nice post....

4 months ago

Excellent post thanks for sharing this information .......................................

3 months ago

very nice and healthy article..thanks for sharing!

3 months ago

Wonderful way to share. Thanks.

3 months ago

esti foarte amuzant ION DAR SI MIE MI S-A FACUT POFTA

3 months ago

Perhaps you could include a picture of this epazote in your post. Also you say that epazote grows like a weed. If you can get seeds for it, maybe you should sell them here on Fanbox. Just a suggestion.

28 days ago