Be full of beans

Being a serious vegetable gardener means that, although I’m not vegetarian, I eat lots of vegetarian dishes.

Stuffed tomatoes, squash risotto, pizza and roasted vegetables with cheese are designed to use up the surplus and they also save me money. I am, after all, a Yorkshire girl at heart and thriftiness is in my nature. I try to raise all my own vegetables and several years ago I had a conversation with Paolo Arrigo of Franchi Seeds, also known as Seeds of Italy. He said there were many areas of Italy that were colder than Britain in winter. Previously I had given these well-stuffed packets of seeds a wide berth, imagining that Italian vegetables would not thrive in our cooler climate.

I was proved very wrong and now their leafy salads and their nutty courgette, ‘Romanesco’, are regular acquisitions every year. I also recommend their passata maker, a bright-red, hand-operated machine that resembles granny’s meat mincer. It makes short work of pounds of tomatoes, removing the skins and seeds, and delivering thick tomato sauce.

Franchi Seeds (www.seedsofitaly.com 0208 427 5020), partly based in Harrow, is the oldest seed company in the world. It was established in 1783 and is now in the hands of the seventh generation. Prices are low and packets fuller because 70 per cent of their seeds are grown by Italian farmers. Many of these have supplied Franchi for generations, a local arrangement keeps costs down. The great find for me was the Borlotti bean, particularly the variety ‘Lamon’. This grows easily in Britain, because it hails from Lamon, north of Venice, where winters are cold. The beans can be eaten from the pod and at this stage they are attractively marbled in pink, earning them the common name of Cranberry bean. As they dry they become streaked in chocolate-brown, and one of my grandchildren was convinced that they were sweets. I found a half chewed one later that day. Must have been a terrible disappointment.

Once dried the beans can be stored in jars although dried beans need soaking for 24 hours so that they plump up. Then they are simmered for several hours, preferably in stock, and emerge pale-brown. They have a distinctive chestnut flavour and you can add them to a stew or a homemade tomato sauce. The texture is meaty and one common name is poor man’s meat.

Borlotti beans are extremely good for you being rich in potassium and minerals, including sodium, zinc, selenium, copper, calcium, manganese, magnesium, iron and phosphorous . They also contain Omega-3 and Omega-6, both healthy fatty acids. They contain Vitamin A, several B vitamins and 18 amino acids. They also contain that all-important dietary requirement — fibre. Like all beans, they are protein-rich and extremely filling. A meal of Lamon beans stays with you for some time. Although an Italian staple, this bean originated in Colombia and came to Europe via Spanish and Portuguese explorers. First name was cargamento bean, literally ‘came by cargo’, along with the tomato. Both were popular in Italy by the 16th century.

When it comes to growing ‘Lamon’ we raise them in modular trays, sowing one seed per module, in mid to late-April. The beans are then planted out in early June, after the threat of frost has passed, and supported by canes just like runner beans. Warm summers suit them best, but this year we had lower yields due to the dry weather and a cool August. Most are dried for winter use, for those days when harvesting sprouts or parsnips is not an attractive prospect. Having grown a few, this one is the best for British use.

There’s a lot happening in bean breeding. In recent years the British seed company Tozer Seeds, based in Surrey, has developed hybrid beans from runner and French beans. This has overcome the problem of non-setting beans, because runner beans (especially red-flowered ones) shed flower if nighttime temperatures exceed 16C (72F). French beans and white-flowered runner beans are more tolerant. So they have been hybridised.