Beans are energetic sorts. They are runners, climbers, crawlers or, in the case of borlotti, acrobatic in the way the older vines borlano (tumble) as they grow. My mum talks about the bean plants in her Dorset garden being vigorous and productive, and describes how they sometimes bolt, both beans and plant, making her full-of-beans grandchildren hopeful that they might have a stalk to climb and a giant to meet.
Lately, one of the stalls on Testaccio market has been getting crates of fresh beans in their pods, called il fagiolo rosso rampicante, from Cuneo in Piedmont. Rampicante means climbing. I can’t get the word rampant out of my head, though – unrestrained, unbridled beans, redheads turning heads and stealing attention. Under their gorgeous mottled pods, they have rusty red streaks on cream-coloured skin, like borlotti. In fact, the stallholder, Marco, refers to them as borlotti. Another stall has beans with a darker mottle called borlotti lingua di fuoco, tongue of fire, while across the market ever-reliable Filippo calls the beans he grows on his land, slap-bang between Rome and Naples, simply fagioli.
While the rampant ones from northern Italy are the plumpest and probably have the best flavour, all the varieties are delicious, each losing their ink splatters and turning dull brown as they simmer, but gaining a flavour and consistency somewhere between a roasted chestnut, a cannellini bean and a chickpea.
In season from July until October/ November, the mottled bean family are an ingredient that bridges the seasons. When they first arrive in June, they fit easily into the rhythm of summer cooking. Podded and boiled until tender, they are good tossed with olive oil and herbs for serving beside meat or fish, mixed still-warm with a spoonful of pesto or handful of rocket Nigel Slater-style, a chopped tomato or a tin of tuna and sliced onion. As days get shorter and the months begin to end with “-ber”, borlotti become the backbone of stews and soups, first the brothy ones (which is the soup equivalent of acknowledging autumn, but refusing tights), then the thick or dense soups and minestra we make as the months roll on.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
