Beans! The Legume Resolution

I'm excited to announce that I am resolved to explore the world of legumes* in 2009.

How, you may wonder, does one explore legumes?

Well, for one thing, I will eat more of them. I'll be eating favorites including black bean breakfast burritos and spicy red lentils, but also trying new beans eaten in new ways (to me). I've never cooked fresh fava beans, never tried sweet beans in my bubble tea, never experimented trying to make my own daal or falafel and I haven't a clue which soy milks taste bad. I've purchased adzuki beans several times in my life and never once figured out what to do with them. That will change this year.

As a botanical family, beans are interesting beyond the edible parts. I hope to do some legume gardening and some legume tourism as well. Possibilities would include the prairie in bloom with baptisia, gardens of the South overflowing with wisteria, the Texas hill country when the blue bonnets are out, the desert with mesquite or a safari among acacia trees. None of these trips are planned, by the way, but as one of the largest plant families, I'm sure to find legumes to observe in Italy and here in my own garden, two trips I am planning on making.

Beans have made their way into literature. I'll be rereading The Milagro Beanfield War and The Bean Trees, and looking into Jack and the Beanstalk and other magic beans. Happy Cricket recently informed me that Thoreau was interested in beans, so it appears I'll be looking into Walden for the first time. Other suggestions are most welcome.

Finally, I'll be writing about beans as well for other forums. Prairie turnips, Pediomelum esculentum, my favorite dissertation study organism, are legumes (not turnips) and its high time the world learned of them through some peer-reviewed articles in ecological journals.

So, legumes, here I come. They, are, as the rhyme goes, good for your heart.

*The legumes, correctly the Fabaceae are a plant family typically known as the "peas and beans". The family includes beans (green, black, red, navy, white, cranberry, pinto, kidney, soy, wax, string, runner, long, broad, fava, anasazi, adzuki and garbonzo), peas (green, sugar, split, chick, and poisonous sweet), peanuts, lupines, prairie turnips, indigo, mimosa, mesquite, red buds, golden banner, wisteria, locust (honey, black and new mexico), laburnum, vetch, clover, alfalfa, gorse, broom, and locoweed, among many others.