Heirloom Legumes

Bolitas and Anasazis, beans with deep roots

More than twenty-five years ago, I met Elizabeth Berry, known as "the Bean Queen of New Mexico.” A feisty and savvy gardener, Elizabeth had first gained a reputation among foodies in the Southwest for her ability to grow rare and common heirloom beans on her ranch near Abiquiu, the village in the Chama River Valley where painter Georgia O’Keeffe lived out the last decades of her life, rendering the subtle colors of the dry but luminous landscape.

At the peak of her operation in the 1990s, Elizabeth was growing some 650 varieties of heirloom beans from seeds that people had sent to her from around the world.  In 1999, she published Elizabeth Berry’s Great Bean Book. I have never forgotten what she told me that day.

“I can tell a lot about a person by how they water plants. That’s the first test,” she said. Elizabeth had apparently been interviewing a prospective employee when I arrived. As we walked through the rows of plants in her dry and dusty fields under the blistering New Mexico sun, I could see how watering in such conditions must be an art form--getting just the right amount to each plant without wasting precious water and without splashing instant mud on the leaves. Those who have mastered farming in the American Southwest continue to produce some of the very best beans I’ve ever tasted. 

Since cold weather is upon us, I thought I’d offer some tips on how to treat yourself in this period of isolation by cooking up some superior dried beans ordered safely by mail.

My favorite bean from the Four Corners area is the bolita, which comes from a plant with very deep roots, making it more durable in the southwestern heat. Originally from Peru, this heirloom legume apparently first traveled to northern New Mexico in the bags of Spanish explorers. Pink and smaller than a pinto, “Bolita beans are the only bean we sell that absorbs whatever spice you put in them,” says the website of Adobe Milling Company of Dove, Colorado, where I have purchased them in recent years.

Bolitas

Avoiding too much gastrointestinal detail, let’s just say that dried beans can produce digestive discomfort if they have not cooked long enough to break down their tough skins. Most dried beans benefit from an overnight soak. But even once soaked, experts say that beans slow cooked in a crock pot on low heat may never achieve the temperature necessary to soften the bean’s surface. Best to cook dried beans over time on a medium simmer--not a big, violent boil--so that you don’t overstir them and cause damage to bean integrity. But cook them long and hot enough to get them soft. Dried beans by definition are slow food, and in winter, it can be nice to read a book while occasionally getting up to stir the pot.

Bolitas, being smaller than the pinto, will cook down to a soft, creamy texture after soaking and do seem quicker to get acquainted with the cook’s additions to the pot. My favorite seasonings are chopped garlic, ground cumin, Mexican oregano, and toward the end, salt to taste from either freshly ground sea salt or by adding chicken or vegetable stock with a moderate sodium content. For spice, I will sometimes throw in a whole dried chile or two into the pot, or simply serve with some fresh chile powder on the side, and let diners determine their preferred heat.

Bolitas can also cook up southern style with nothing more than a small slab of pork or ham, and last-minute salt and pepper. They’ll substitute for a pot of pintos with flying colors alongside a mess of turnip greens and a basket of corn meal fritters.

No matter the style, just remember it’s best not to add salt or acidic ingredients to any pot of formerly dried beans until they have cooked to an edible softness, which varies according to the variety.

Where to find bolitas? I used to buy a year’s supply at summer’s end at a roadside stand in the town of Española north of Santa Fe. Dried beans last for years in storage, though the older the bean, the longer they may need to cook. Beans are at their best, I’m told, in their first and second years. Since I haven’t been out that way for a while, mail order is the next best thing.

Beans are cheap nutrition. A two-pound bag of bolitas from Colorado’s Adobe Milling Company is only $3.50, but the shipping is $18! I recently ordered three bags of beans and three bags of blue corn meal, which makes fabulous blue corn, blueberry, banana, and buttermilk pancakes, which we call B4s. The price on my order for the bolitas and blue corn meal was under $20, but the shipping was $30, so stocking up on quantity at least spreads the shipping cost a little bit. Call me extravagant, but because of the pandemic, I am not eating out as much. It is easy to spend the same amount on a fancy meal. For what it’s worth, a couple of years ago, I did find a bag of bolitos from Adobe Milling for sale at Bearmeat’s Indian Den, an art gallery and trading post on Highway 19 coming into Cherokee, North Carolina. So you might find some Adobe products at specialty retail stores if you scour the aisles.

Anasazi beans

Adobe Milling Company also offers Anasazi beans, which are beautiful reddish-brown and white beans that are also meaty and delicious, not to mention an ancient form of nutrition. Archaeologists found them in the mountainside dwellings of the Pueblo Indians in Mesa Verde, Canyon de Chelly, and Hovenweep. 

Another company that offers flavorful and uncommon heirloom beans is Rancho Gordo, a specialty mail order company in Napa Valley. Despite Covid and California’s rampaging wildfires, owner Steve Sando is still providing a selection of heirloom beans, grains, and spices from across the Americas. His beans (no bolitos or Anasazis at the moment) are non-GMO by definition but are not always organically grown. They average $5.95 per pound, and for an order of $50, the shipping is free. Steve also offers colorful cookbooks from his own small press that provide tried-and true recipes and origin stories of the heirlooms. (Pandemic homeschoolers: this could be a science and social studies project with a payoff at dinnertime!)

North Bay Trading Company in Brule, Wisconsin, has the widest catalog of heirloom beans I could find online, sold retail by mail and wholesale at places such as Whole Foods. Many of their beans are organically grown and produced in a Kosher environment. Though they call them “pink beans,” I suspect the smaller-than-pinto beans they offer are actually bolitas. They are $5.95 per pound with an $8.50 flat rate for shipping on orders up to $99. Orders above that amount are shipped free. North Bay also offers “survival” foods that are freeze dried if you are feeling the need to stock up, given current conditions.

I think it’s important to keep ourselves engaged and learning in these rough times of isolation and “abundant caution.” Preparing meals in our house has been a helpful ritual. As Steve Sando puts it on the Rancho Gordo website:

As you cook these heirloom beans and other grains and ingredients, keep in mind that we have a common New World culture with Mexico and the rest of the Americas. What you are doing isn’t exotic and esoteric. It’s continuing traditions that are well-established for a reason.

Stay safe, ya’ll.