h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Yes. I am. I have beans growing in front of my house. Live with it!

Oh, that I can live with. Boston is far enough away, I believe

Here's a recipe for crab soup with white beans, from Denmark:

http://www.culinary-heritage.com/recipe.asp?regionid=65&recipesid=1100#.U7wAdPfD988

Here's a recipe for green beans and mushrooms, featuring Danish Creamery Butter:

http://challengedairy.com/recipes/side-dishes/savory-green-beans-and-mushrooms

Here's a Danish cook who can't imagine chili without beans. He also can't imagine it without beer.

http://iamaviking.com/tag/viking-danish-beer/

So don't worry about Boston beans. Denmark has plenty of its own.

I'm guessing Pierce may share my opinion of baked beans--beans should not be sweet

That's fine as far as it goes, Amy, but beans of all kinds find their way into soups, stews, and even breads. As I've tried to indicate, Denmark has plenty of vintage recipes containing beans [not necessarily sweet]. Germany has beans and spaetzle. France has cassoulet. Italy has minestrone, plus numerous regional bean soups. Italians are apt to eat beans as snacks. Ceci nuts [roasted and salted garbanzos] and roasted fava beans are particularly tasty. One of my favorite soup recipes is a Greek bean soup. Another is a bean soup with sweet green peppers from Dagestan. In Egypt, people eat a type of bean called ful at every meal, starting with breakfast. Hommous [a mixture of garbanzos, sesame tahini, olive oil, and spices] is popular throughout much of the Mideast. Felafel, made with pulverized garbanzos and greens, is also tasty. In India, lentils are king. China and Japan have mung beans and soy beans. Some people have tried to get Indians interested in soybeans, even going so far as to puree them and shape them into lentil shape .

Many of these countries are a lot closer to Denmark/England than Boston.

"Some people have tried to get Indians interested in soybeans, even going so far as to puree them and shape them into lentil shape"

Did they dye them green?

Eh? Spätzle are eaten with lentils, not beans. There is a bean dish in the North of Germany, though, called Birnen, Bohnen und Speck. (Pears, beans and bacon)

http://www.rezeptewiki.org/wiki/Birnen,_Bohnen_und_Speck

I meant to mention Fabada, too. A bean soup from Galicia.

http://www.recetasderechupete.com/receta-de-fabada-o-fabes-asturianas/982/

That was from Asturia; this one's from Galicia:

http://www.menucocina.com/fabada-gallega/

"Spätzle are eaten with lentils, not beans. "[TC]

If that's the case, then why are there so many links to recipes for green beans and spaetzle?

Green Beans & Spaetzle in Bavarian Sauce - Birds Eye
https://www.birdseye.com/vegetable-products/sauced-seasoned/green-beans-spaetzle-in-bavaria...

Green Beans and Spaetzle, Recipe from Martha Stewart Living,
http://www.marthastewart.com/355868/green-beans-and-spaetzle

Sunday Potluck: Bavarian Green Beans and Spaetzle | I Can Boil ...
http://icanboilwater.com/2011/05/01/sunday-potluck-bavarian-green-beans-and-spaetzle/

Bavarian Green Beans Recipe - Food.com
http://www.food.com/recipe/bavarian-green-beans-245093

Green Beans & Spaetzle in Bavarian Style Sauce | Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Green-Beans-Spaetzle-in-Bavarian-Style-Sauce/162163953812696

Green Beans German Style Recipe | Taste of Home
http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/green-beans-german-style

I haven't searched for lentils for spaetzle yet.....

No idea, but I've not heard of that combination in Germany.

So I googled. Most of the recipes for Spätzle with beans are for "Saure Bohnen" That is: pickled beans.

I will admit I found a few recipes for Spätzle with green beans, with various sorts of sausage, but they are not familiar to me, which doesn't mean that they don't exist. Maybe Tav knows them.

Bird's Eye offers packages of frozen green beans with spaetzle. I assumed that this was a well-known combination in Germany .

I have a delicious recipe for green beans with sausages . It doesn't call for any kind of noodles, but there's no reason why one couldn't add them.

I'm not opposed to beans as such. I just don't understand the British fondness for baked beans. Plus I have to avoid most legumes (beans, peas and lentils) because they may give me gout attacks

Birnen, Bohnen und Speck was my maternal grandmother's favourite, TC.

Hummus made from peas is one of mine. Apparently they won't give me gout

Garbanzos/chickpeas are fairly low in the purines that cause gout. Roman beans [cranberry beans/borlotti] are also low. Sadly, I don't think they're all that tasty.

I'm sorry that gout is a problem for you.

Today I picked fresh green beans from my garden. They tasted wonderful!

My own chickpeas are coming along nicely at the moment.

They stand up to the summer beat and alkaline soil much better than any of the other beans I've tried.

Three cantaloupes on a vine growing on a support one in a 16 liter pot at the moment, one nearly ripe.

Nothing else producing at the moment except the red okra and that's having trouble with the heat if I miss a day of watering.

Time came too quickly to me this spring - so once again I was too late when I wanted to grow my own

Oh well, in a few days I'll be given the copious amounts that my neighbours can't eat themselves

Best flavored of my tomatoes for the past season, the German green stripe.

Hardiest and next runner up on flavor, the Siberian black, easily propagated from cuttings.




My current focus on tomatoes is the Cherokee purple.

Though the fruit is an unequivocal tomato, in a size range with the general run of commercial sandwich tomatoes, the leaf so closely resembles that of an eggplant that it may not be recognized in the seedling state as a tomato by the novice gardener.




Also have a couple of wild varieties, an easy to propagate and prolific 0.5 cm black and a difficult to propagate 1 cm yellow, both of which more closely resemble peppers in the leaf than typical commercial tomatoes.

The only pepper I've got in production at the moment is the 0.25 x 1 cm red chili pequin, the most primitive, or wild, variety of the chili pepper, thriving and promising to go perrenial and spread.




Considering it usually costs more to produce vegetables in the garden than to purchase them in the stores, I tend focus on unusual and difficult to obtain varieties

I must not have the right kind of soil for squashes and cucumbers. Most of my cucumbers have not grown at all in the last three weeks. The few which have grown are looking tired now, though at least they're growing. I gave them some Miracle-Gro [which was left over from last year] a few days ago, but so far there's no sign of progress.

Summer cucumbers often don't produce till autumn.

They're blossoming, at least. The zucchini are, too.