Tuesday, June 26, 2012

favas (the year of)


Again this fall I will plant favas.  Probably, as long as I garden, I will.  But there may never again be a take like this year.  They all tillered, most to three.  They bloomed like mad, none of them blackened off.  Mild winter?  Just a gift?

Shuck, boil, skin, eat.  Repeat.  Jeff can even do it one-handed, and did while we were gone, a few times.  Holly has been up to her elbows more than once.

One day we will have a fancy digital scale and I will weigh all our harvests and be able to brag in numbers.  Not.

Right now we have two pints of shelled bright green beans in the fridge, and two goodwill bags of pods.  We ate them last night in a warm salad with potatoes and snap peas and Tona's cilantro-macadamia nut pesto.  We ate them the day before that with green garlic, pecorino, and pasta.  Jeff ate them before that in eggs, and on salads, and I think by the spoon out of the fridge.

Gay says she had them with potato gnocchi, and it was right.  Maybe this week I will make gnocchi?

I bought some pancetta because how have we not had them with pork?!

I used to love them best with corn and tiny diced fresh red onion.  But not in this climate.  Corn and favas at the same time??

Which brings us to: is it possible to freeze them in their skins?  And then pop them into the boiling water and shell them?  Worth an experiment, right?  They might get mushy.  Mushy beans = worst.

Jeff thinks these must have some kind of fat in them, to make them so oily and satisfying.  Uh, wikipedia?  Nope, but lots of iron.  Isn't wikipedia just so full of information?!

God bless the humble fava bean, and its easy relationship with our climate.  I hear it is poor man's food, yet this spring we feel rich.




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