How to Crave Beans and A Recipe for Restorative White Bean Stew

Last summer, I wrote a piece for The New York Times about how to encourage Americans to eat less meat and more beans and other legumes and it's taken me a whole year to post about it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/0...

My argument in the piece was that if populations are going to be persuaded to switch to more sustainable diets, preference change has to be part of the picture. Telling people they are wrong to enjoy the foods they do enjoy is neither kind nor effective.

But the good news is that it's entirely possible to change and widen our tastes at any age. This was something I learned from doing the research for my book FIRST BITE. We all start life drinking milk. But all of our other taste preferences are acquired. And if they are learned they can also be unlearned or relearned.

I sometimes wonder how baffled my Dorito-eating younger self would be by middle-aged me, who would rather eat some gorgeous roasted oyster mushrooms or a vibrant plate of charred asparagus than anything from McDonald’s.

If we want to change the way populations eat for the better, the single most important thing to address is preference. Nutrients only count when someone actually wants to pick them up and eat them. Beans are a case in point.

There are signs that Americans are already learning new tastes for beans and pulses. Since 2003, the proportion of Americans who consume chickpeas has more than doubled, in part thanks to the popularity of hummus, which taught many skeptics that those strange, round things could actually become a rich, savory dip.

Yet bean consumption is still incredibly low compared to meat consumption. And not just in America.
In our ultra-processed age, bean consumption is low in most parts of the globe (with the exceptions of Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia). FAO data suggests that the global average per person per day is 21 grams of beans (a figure which includes all the other legumes such as lentils, dried peas and chickpeas).[1] In the U.S., the figure is around half that, at just 12.8 grams.[2] On average, as of 2019, an American spends just $4.76 a year on all legumes – less than a Venti Pumpkin Spice Latte at Starbucks.[3]

[1] Beans is How: A Roadmap to Double Global Bean Consumption

[2] I’ve taken the latest USDA data on dried pulses which is from 2022: 10.3 pounds per person per year. This is 4672 grams per year or 12.8 per year.

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p....

The big question is how dislike for beans can turn to like. There isn't a single magic bullet answer to this. Governments could do more to sow a love of beans by offering workshops and online videos on delicious ways to cook and eat them.

Several bean companies are also doing a great job of selling beans as something delicious and exciting rather than worthy. Two shining examples are the Bold Bean Co. in Britain whose jars of juicily delicious cooked beansd have converted many haters and Rancho Gordo in the U.S. Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo told me that he never talks to his customers about the health benefits. Rather, he sells the magic of taking 'a pound of rocks' and turning them into something creamy and delicious.

One way to learn to enjoy beans more is to give them new associations. One of the fascinating people I interviewed whose words got sadly cut from the final piece was Ken Albala, a professor of food studies and the author of BEANS. He grew up thinking beans were disgusting becasue he only knew them as slimy Lima beans. He learned to love beans by eating them in ways that had nothing in common with the flavourless Limas of his youth. He adores a spicy Indian dal made from lentils and an Egyptian ful medames made from fava beans and after we spoke, he was about to go and make himself a Mexican bean burrito for breakfast to fortify himself for a long day of work.

Another obstacle to eating more beans is the perception that they are somehow 'bothersome' to cook, as Nick Saltmarsh of Hodmedod's told me.

With this in mind, here is one of my simplest ever bean stew recipes which is far easier to throw together than any meat stew I know and so much more satisfying to eat than you might guess from the ingredients list.

This recipe is from THE SECRET OF COOKING (W.W. Norton and Fourth Estate). Judging from the feedback I've had from readers, I don't think as many people have cooked it as have cooked the CHICKEN STEW FOR TIRED PEOPLE in the same book. Maybe it's because for those of us who are meat eaters, the sight of beans on a page still does not necessarily provoke hunger in the way that chicken does.

But all I can say is that everyone who has ever eaten this bean stew asks for second helpings. And readers who HAVE made it have raved about it. During the photoshoot for the book, this was one of the surprise hits with the whole team, vegetarians and non-vegetarians alike.

It was the brilliant chefs at Vanderlyle restaurant in Cambridge (Alex Rushmer and Lawrence Butler) who taught me that the broth in which white beans cook can be as soothing as chicken stock. In the past, I would foolishly rinse the beans after cooking them, thus throwing the best bit away. When you are tired, cooking dried beans can feel like too much effort, but in case you didn't already know this, you don’t have to soak them*. These can happily simmer away in the background while you relax (or realistically, do housework or catch up with emails or pay bills or do one of the hundreds of things that you still have to do when you are tired). The hands-on cooking here is minimal and the results are pure comfort.

Serves 4–6 , depending on how many of you are children

250g dried white beans, such as cannellini
30g flat-leaf parsley, chopped (or any other herb of your choosing) 6 cloves of garlic
600g new potatoes
2 medium courgettes or 2 large carrots
100g spring onions
150ml white wine or vermouth
Lemon (zest and juice)
Double cream (or coconut cream to keep it dairy-free)

Put the beans into a medium-large saucepan, add half the parsley and the whole cloves of garlic, cover with masses of water and bring to simmering point. Bring to a hard boil and cook for around 10 minutes, then turn the heat down and simmer for around 2 hours, or until the beans are totally tender. This is the unpredictable part, but it really isn’t strenuous. Dried beans can cook in anywhere from around 11⁄2–3 hours without soaking. Just check them every half an hour and keep topping up with water as needed.

When they are tender, chop the potatoes and courgettes (or peeled carrots) and spring onions into small pieces and add them to the pan along with 1 teaspoon of salt (leave it out if cooking for toddlers and season at the table for non-toddlers) and the wine. Put a lid on the pan and simmer for a further 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Adjust the seasoning with lemon and add a big slosh of double cream and the second half of the parsley.

*Having said this, I actually love the process of soaking beans when I remember. And it hugely cuts down on the cooking time. If you soak the beans in a large amount of cold water overnight, the simmering stage may take only 45 minutes compared to 2 hours.