Legumes The Forgotten Protein
I never grew beans. Twenty-seven years on that ground and it was rice, row crop, and the orchards — apricots we grew and packed ourselves. Legumes weren't part of the operation. So when I say I've been thinking about them lately, it's not some old farming wisdom I'm finally getting around to sharing. It's newer than that. It's coming from the kitchen, not the field.
I started buying dried lentils and chickpeas a while back, mostly because I kept running into them reading about how people eat around the Mediterranean. Not as a side dish or an occasional thing — as a regular part of the meal, the way we might reach for rice without thinking about it. I figured I'd try it and see what happened.
What happened is I liked it more than I expected to. Dried lentils cost less than a candy bar and turn into several meals if you're not fussy. But I'll admit most weeks I'm reaching for a can of chickpeas or black beans instead, because I haven't planned far enough ahead to soak anything. Rinse them, throw them in with onion and garlic and whatever's already in the pot, and you're most of the way to dinner in ten minutes. I used to think canned was the lesser option somehow. I don't think that anymore. It's the same bean, just further along.
What gets me is how little space either one takes up in a regular grocery store. Six kinds of protein bars before you find the dried beans, and the canned ones are usually one narrow aisle, easy to walk past. That's strange to me now, coming at it fresh, though I suspect if I'd grown up eating them instead of discovering them at sixty-some years old, I wouldn't think twice about where they sit on the shelf.
I'm not going to tell you legumes are the answer to anything. I don't know enough about nutrition to make that claim, and I'm skeptical of people who do based on one article they read. What I can tell you is that this is early for me. I'm a few months into cooking with them regularly, not a lifetime. I don't have the long view on this one — I'm still finding out what I think.
There's something to the patience of the dried ones that I do recognize, even without the farming connection. Soak them or don't, either way you're waiting. The canned ones skip that part entirely, which is probably why they've become the one I actually use on a Tuesday night.
From the Field
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