Nostalgic ... I get nostalgic when it's August and the bird egg bean vines have reached their apex and the pods on those rangy vines are swollen. Inside tough rosy striped cases are the beans that are part of our heritage here on the farm.
Not ever a crop to be sold (I resisted using today's term 'marketed'), these beans have been grown here since the 1940s for the family's use. Every family member will tell you their favorite recipe. Arthur likes them any way but particularly the way his grandma fixed them, simply boiled on the stove with lots of butter, salt and pepper, best enjoyed with a thick slice of real, homemade salt rising bread. They make great and hearty baked beans in the Boston tradition with molasses, brown sugar and salt pork, slow cooked in the oven. And they adapt to more modern baked bean recipes from the my shelf of vegetarian cookbooks. We often use them for refried beans in tacos for a quick lunch.
And for me, the farm wife who's lived here for 50 years, the ritual to harvest, shell, blanch and pack them for the freezer tells me summer is almost through. Even if I didn't notice darker mornings, yellowed leaves scattered across the grass, Golden Glow blooming next to the clothesline and the field grown so tall only the furry antlers of deer appear as they make their morning forage.
