Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Science, Food, History, Arts

4.7 • 3.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 October 2023

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Botanically, beans are indeed a fruit, and, honestly, they are also pretty magical. And we’re clearly not the only ones to think that: beans are the unsung hero of history. The fact that they were domesticated an astonishing seven different times in different places around the world shows how essential beans were to early humans, wherever they lived; in Europe, Italian author and polymath Umberto Eco credits the bean with saving civilization itself. Lately, however, the humble bean has found its fan base declining. In Northern Europe, Australia, Canada, and the United States, most people barely eat beans at all. This episode—our love song to beans—we're exploring the story of the bean's fall from grace, as well as the heirloom varieties and exclusive club that are making beans cool again. Plus, we visit with the Ugandan breeder working on Beans 2.0, which will take a third less time to cook. But can anybody do anything about one of beans' most notorious side-effects? Yes, we're talking farts: we're on the case to discover whether scientists can develop a gas-free bean. Listen in as we spill the beans on one of our favorite foods. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Screw it. I'm going to get a gold spoon for my bean tasty.
0:07.0	Gold spoon for your bean tasting.
0:08.7	Okay, it's the gastropode cross-over event where I use my gold spoon.
0:14.0	All right, I'm doing the little white bean first
0:18.0	and I'm just doing it naked.
0:21.0	No oil, no salt, no nothing. Just doing a spoonful of bean.
0:25.0	Mm. Even fridge cold. They're pretty great.
0:31.0	So here we go with the King City pink.
0:33.0	Minor room temperature because I cook them this morning and then just let them cool.
0:38.0	Mm, they're delicious kind of pintoi bean.
0:40.0	They're dense and creamy.
0:42.0	They're kind and creamy.
0:43.0	They're kind of earthy.
0:45.0	They're totally delicious.
0:47.0	I know not everyone tastes their beans on a gold spoon,
0:51.0	but then not everyone loves beans as much as we do.
0:55.0	Regular Gastropod listeners will know that Cynthia and I are Bean Fans and Bean Evangelists.
1:01.0	And of course we're also Gastropod, the podcast that looks at food
1:03.9	through the lens of science and history. I'm Cynthia Graber. And I'm Nicola Twilly and
1:07.6	so we decided to treat ourselves to an episode about what is truly one of our favorite foods, the not so humble Bean,
1:16.6	mainly because we wanted to figure out why everyone doesn't love them as much as we do.
1:21.2	This episode we explore the origins of that Bean disdain as much as we do. This episode we explore the origins of that bean
	...

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