[Sca-cooks] The Musical Fruit(s)

Barbara Benson voxeight at gmail.com
Sat Apr 12 09:49:10 PDT 2008


Saluti!

 In Cuoco Napoletano there is a recipe for "Kidney Beans" that I am
 looking at, and of course this comes around to the whole "which beans
 are old world and which are new world" mental gymnastics.

 Piddling about on the internet a bit I came across this:
 http://plantanswers.tamu.edu/publications/vegetabletravelers/beans.html

 Which appears to have the illustrious providence of having been
 published in National Geographic in 1949. It seems interesting, if
 simplistic. But what struck my curiosity was this statement:

 "The English first used the name "kidney bean" in 1551 to distinguish
 our American common bean from Old World types"

 and piddling around more I came across claims that the new wold beans
 were commonly being imported to the old world in the 15th century.
 Now, this makes common sense to me - beans are easy to ship, easy to
 plant and easy to grow. Europeans were already growing plenty of beans
 and I can see the new varieties being easily accepted.

 So, I know the word geeks on this list (with your fancy pants OED)
 could probably easily confirm/debunk the above claim vis a vis the
 earliest use of Kidney bean. Hopefully someone will find it an
 interesting enough thing to look into (please ;) ). And I am wondering
 if, considering that I am looking at a late 15th century source, it
 would be safe to make the leap that one of the new world beans
 (Kidney, Black, Pinto, White Northern ...) might be an acceptable
 choice in interpreting the recipe?

 [Kidney Beans (#41)
 Cook the kidney beans in pure water or good broth; when they are
 cooked, get finely sliced onions and fry them in a pan with good oil
 and put these fried onions on top [of the beans] along with pepper,
 cinnamon and saffron; then let this sit a while on the hot coals; dish
 it up with good spices on top.]

 I am looking forward to hearing others thoughts on this subject.

 --
 Serena da Riva



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