Hello and welcome to cooking issues this is Dave Alder host of cooking issues coming to you live from rocket motor center in the heart of Manhattan and newsstand studios. Joined again in the studio with Anastasia the hammer Lopez back in the good ol USA they hate doing stuff. Good. Yeah. And I asked her what she said last week she still stands by her former statement that her trip to Paris was unwanted. Well, you said I thought a waste but yeah, what a waste of waste. Got on the far away rocking discord and rocking the YouTubes we've got Jackie molecule's back in Los Angeles. How you doing? I'm great. Yeah. Yeah. Anything anything new and interesting happening in Los Angeles? No, no, just boring. All LA. I have to say. I think you know, a lot of New Yorkers love to hate LA. I like LA. I'm gonna I'm not gonna go Randy Newman. I don't love LA. But I like you go back and forth on this. As I don't have time I don't have time to talk about it. Got got John here. I'm also looking at your discord to see what kind of questions you got. Hey, doing John doing great. Thanks. Yeah. Any new interesting food things you've done recently? No, no, no. So I don't have time to get into it now. But the devil the Devil Dogs recipe that we discussed last week. I did make it. It is delicious. I will say I think it would be better as a hot dip. So what it is is you grind up hot dogs and American cheese. sweet pickle relish and mayonnaise mustard. Okay, you with me so far and an egg. You whip that together and then you wipe it on buttered buns and you bake it Now this recipe goes back to my cousin Brady's Are you ready for it? Ukrainian immigrant grandma tiny. Grandma tiny was her name is first went back she was in fact a small woman. And I'm going to work on the rest. We need something crunchy. You know I'm saying John needs some crunchy in it. Maybe some lettuce. You could turn this Fred on him. Oh, yeah, I did put that on it. Listen, anything can be turned into a taco bowl. You know what I mean? I think it'd be good as a taco bowl dip. We'll talk about it later. We got Joe rockin the panels. How you doing Joe? Hasan? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm okay. You look you look. Well, you you're peppy today. Is it a good day in New York for Joe Hasan? It's a good day for broadcasting. Yes. Nice. Good day for Brock. I like that. It's not no not for Joe Hasan. Personally, but so we're broadcasting. It's a good day. And I'm very excited. First time on the show our special guests to be Master Blaster General Steve Sandow, from Rancho Gordo beans. How you doing?

Hey, great. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm still reeling from that Double Dog recipe, but I'm doing my best. I'm a survivor. So I'll get through it. Listen, listen,

listen, just as you know, it's equal parts American cheese and went to my cheese supplier. And I was like, I was like, listen, listen, I know that this isn't what you normally sell. But there it's the polos, you know, which is an Italian store here in New York City. But they carry a lot of stuff that they wouldn't otherwise carry. Because they have like, you know, 8090 year old customers who have been buying this stuff since the 50s. You know what I mean? And so like they have to carry like the boars head block cheese they have to carry. There's a there's a fake, fake Well, it's fake Argentinian like Parmesan substitute that they still carry because there are some people who were still alive during World War Two and started buying that stuff and then they still want that product so they still carry it but they they will talk to you about it. Like they don't you can't see it when you go because like I was like yo give me some of that block cheese give me some of that. They're like don't call it government cheese. I was like, oh, okay, just give me some of that block Americans I had to block American power froze it with the hot dogs grounded up I did a vegetarian version with the field. I've configured the name of it the highly rated vegan dog it was actually had a better texture than the meat one. It held together because of all the hydrocarbons that they put into it. Enough of the enough of the Devil Dogs although someone asked me I think a Patreon member you can find out and say who was gone What meat grinder I used I idea session or put into storage all of my KitchenAid materials because I decided I was disgusted with the KitchenAid and I wasn't gonna use it for a while. But I didn't want to buy the meat grinder attachment for the Bosch I'm going back to almost all manual grinding stuff and I'm going to talk to you about I'm going to pull you back into this Steve. I bought a bought a hand number 10 Hand meat grinder I bought the stainless one the LTM used on eBay, but like you know you can get the porker and it's a joy to grind small amounts of meat by hand and not have the rare you know what I mean? And like in like cleaning all that crap hand grinder. So now that we're talking about grinders, I first came to know of you Steve not because of your amazing beans, but because of your love of masa and you were the person who discovered it In America, the next thematic grinder you want to talk about that Do you still advocate for the next American grinder?

That is hysterical from the past? Yeah. Well, I, when I first had to go into Mexico, I was kind of horrified by the state of the more I went, the more I realized I didn't know anything. I thought, you know, I'm from California. I love burritos. Of course. I know everything about Mexican food, which is ridiculous. But eating real tortillas in Mexico. I just became obsessed with masa. And you know, you adding water to a powder isn't the same thing. That's masa harina. And it serves a purpose, but I just became obsessed with different corns and soaking them in calcium hydroxide. How is that right? Yeah. Well, I

don't know what it is. Calcium hydroxide. Anyway, some people use potash

Yeah, well, I guess technically the same thing is why?

No, that's a sodium hydroxide. So you can use any base, it's just like the most prevalent base in in, in in Mexican cuisine is cow, which is calcium hydroxide, as you say. And the advantage of calcium hydroxide is is relatively low solubility and so it's relatively easy to use. It's also not very, like it's not super caustic. So it's not going to ruin you the way that like lye can really mean I've you know, had to go to the hospital once because I put lie on my tongue by mistake. Long story. I won't get into it. He was there. My wife was like super bad Anastasia, for some reason, just because she was in the room. And it happened. Remember that says, oh, yeah, yeah, it was bad. And first of all, like, when you put lie on your tongue, it's not like you have to wait around. It's not like you're like, oh, did I do something bad? Yeah, like when something gets on your skin. You're like, oh, did I do something bad? When my hits your tongue? You're like, oh, hospital now you like wash yourself off anyway. So I would use calcium hydroxide. potash is another thing, you know, because people would the same stuff. People used to make soap anything you have for bass, but cowl is traditional. Have you noticed? So? i When did I write that article? sighs like 2011 2010 2000? Yeah, somewhere around there. When I was doing all my next organization experiments. And I, what I discovered was as a grinding sucks, it's a terrible job. And like, I felt like immense. Well, I felt like immense, like, I couldn't believe like the work that all of those women for so many 1000s of years have done grinding corn, you know what I mean? Like, it was just so much work. And yeah, and then

they do them on the stone, the love of mottos, you know, it's in a submission position, submissive position. And it really kept women down when you think about it, because they had to be on the floor. They're using their backs to push this meal and it really was part of the liberation to not have to do that. Yeah, machinery came in. I mean, it does still they'd argue that they still taste better but who wants to be on the floor all day? Pushing quorum

Yeah. Rachel loud and did a study once on how on like, just how many hours it takes to feed like to feed a family just based on grinding time. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's nuts. I bought so in the early to mid 2000s in New York City, like the closest I could get to buying a real Matata they were it was basically an ornamental Matata. And so trying to grind on an ornamental metallic a is even worse than trying to grind on, you know, on a real one, I quickly gave up I hate the corona grinder, a Corona grinder. I don't like I'm sure it's fine if you hook it up to a washing machine motor, but like, like a hand grind, a hand crank, like Corona, is like, it's a friggin nightmare. And then someone pinged me on the blog, which I was updating at the time was like Steve Sandow has a fixed amount of cars like Well, I'm not flying to Mexico to buy it. And then I eventually got taken to Mexico. And the very first thing I said was, take me to the store, we're buying and next ematic this next ematic as soon as I got to Mexico City, and it is a lot better. You know, I abused it once with, with nuts, right? So I was I put nuts through it. And I don't know if you know this, if you grind peanuts with sugar. Like it gums up the machine instantly, right? Like, instantly, like melts the sugar gums up the machine. Smoke came out of the back of the next ematic I was like, Oh, I'm dead. And it came back to life. Can you believe that?

Wow. Yeah, that's right. There's also you know, I think people make Malay and it's also it should be able to handle more stuff. Maybe the sugar I mean, there's very little sugar if any,

yeah, I think what happened is the sugar I think the sugar caramelized with the heat and then just like froze and gummed it. And then that was that was it. A lot of people I know now you know what because more chef people kind of do the masa. I know people who don't have the money to buy the the you know the decent size Grindr. Like you know there's like a there's like a $2,000 like restaurant size grinder that people can get now. A lot of people I know they run it just they run it through a meat grinder a couple of times with a fine plate, but I've never had the product. I don't know how good it gets. I mean, I know that I hate the food processor, because you have to add too much water. You know, I don't

know. No. And I know Brown at one point was proclaiming that's the way to go. And I was like, I this is not masa. But I know. This isn't what I understand. All right.

Can I tell you tell you tell you a cheat that I do that is you're gonna you're gonna think I'm a terrible person. Sure. So, okay, listen, you do it in the food processor. And you and I, we all know it's too wet. Right? It's not it's not real masa? Yeah. So what you do is, you put a little bit of my seca into get the texture backwards supposed to go. And I know it's cheating, but still get the majority of it is fresh nixtamal. And you're just trying to knock that you're trying to knock that extra water back with a little bit of my CEQA. What do you think?

I don't think it's a crime. I mean, it's still better. The I know a lot of local torchy areas that well, a lot of them there aren't a lot anymore. But a lot of times when you find a tortilleria that will make fresh nixtamal. They add in a Seiko, so it'll last longer. Well, so as a preservative, almost. And it's a mistake isn't the devil, but the company is but the product actually works is that's the problem. And so people think compromise too much,

right? Well, it's better than better than a pre made tortilla when

I was growing. Well, for sure. But we know when I was growing up, you know, I'm old. So I go into the mission in San Francisco, and there were probably seven different tortillas you could buy all made from nixtamal. I mean, nothing was masa harina at that point, and you'd walk in, and the smell was like heaven. And now, you know, most of the Mexican stores we have here in the Bay Area, are they Texas, Guerrero brands that has a paragraph of ingredients. But I think that's probably what led you and me too, getting a little obsessive about it. What was

interesting in New York, we've kind of had the flip in 2010, there was exactly, or nine there was exactly one place in New York that did that made nixtamal In fact, they called it the touchy area nixtamal. And you know, I think since then there are now more people like restaurants doing it themselves and stuff. But let me ask you about the flip on this. Because I know that, you know, I don't know, 10 years ago or so even in Mexico, a lot of places were moving away from doing fresh nixtamal just because it's so much less convenient. But if you notice with that, I know there's been a resurgence and that, you know, the guys at maganda are working really hard on bringing back even like, like awesome old varieties of corn. But if you notice now that people who are doing it tend to, I think over callate just to prove that they made it from scratch. So it's like so heavily Cal tasting.

No, I haven't. I wouldn't be surprised. Well, also, you know, you don't have your grandmother telling you what to do. So people are kind of rediscovering something. So that's really I hope it isn't why they're doing it. Maybe they just don't know how to rinse it. I felt completely I actually liked a tiny bit of that. There. Yeah, me too. If it's too much. That's pretty awful. Yeah, yeah,

cuz. Yeah. Well, while we're on nixtamal, I will bring this up because longtime listener and ice cream author Quinn wrote in with a question for you about it. I had I guess he didn't like my answer a couple of weeks ago. Quinn wants to know, because he's doing his own masa. Whether you've ever used flavorful liquid in the process instead of just water.

Oh, God, no, no, I'm sorry. My instinct is like, No, that's a total horrible mistake. But I don't know. No. I mean, maybe it would be interesting.

Listen. Naturally Quinn's a naturally curious person. So I think he just wants it to not be a waste stream. I think I think where he's coming from his queen wants it to not be a waste stream. So he wants it to be useful afterwards. You know, but yeah, I just can't oh,

what to do with the water after you?

Well, I think I think he wants it to be a cart. I think he wants it to be a two part situation, right? I think he wants the corn to pick up flavor from the process, right? So that there's flavor in the Aside from just a flavor of the nixtamal in the corn, and I think then it simultaneously I think he wants the product. It's leftover to not be a waste stream.

Well, I would just say if you're going to all this trouble and say you're getting corn from us and or someone like that. It's disrespectful to the corn. Don't do it the traditional way. But then once you drink units Oh, is that in the garden? Because it's people that live in their gardens all the time. So the strange water, you can repurpose. And so it's not going to waste they're going down. You're saying,

yeah, yeah. All right. I like that. Okay, before we get to beans, because I just want to get all the non bean stuff out of the way. First, you're also a clay pot aficionado. And I remember that, you know, Anastasia, Anastasia, and I went with Harold McGee to visit. Of course, back when she was alive, Paula Wolfert, right when she was doing a lot of her kind of clay pot, lunacy. And you and she will get together in in clay pot land, right?

Yes, and she is still alive.

Oh, she is. Her husband died. Her husband died. Her husband died. Yes. Sorry. My bed.

Well, she has some serious health issues. That's what I'd say. Yes, no, no, she, I always sort of had a casual interest in it. And then she made me realize, oh, no, this is really fun. And there she has come to Rancho Gordo and done presentations. She goes she got a lot of there's a whole generation of clay pot if not, because you don't really need them. But there's this general heat. She talks about the unglazed pieces have their memory of everything they ever cooked. And, you know, every culture that I know of, like from Mexico to Italy, in Spain, I mean, everyone knows the best beans are cooked in play. So it started there. And then I've gotten I tend to not have many casual interest. So if I think there's some validity to it, I go crazy.

Not precious, right? You're like they're gonna break. Right? You're like they're gonna break. So don't worry about it. Right?

Well, yeah, that isn't a Yeah, it's not an error where you're likely to pass out although I break very few. But it might be because I have so many in there in rotation. But we're working with a village in Puebla kind of near Wahaca. And they have a special clay that naturally has counselor talcum powder in it. Naturally, they don't add it. And they burnish the pots with rocks, quartz rocks have been a family for generations. And this is these are the best pots. They're sort of a neutral, kind of taupe color. And then as you use them, they get darker and they're because there's no glaze. There's no issues with lead, and you put them right on the gas burner. And I don't even gently heat them and bring it up. I just turn them on and go and these things are amazing.

Are they similar to as well as Are they similar to La Chama? Like the Colombian ones.

They would be but they're taupe color. They're not black at all. And I think the chakras are naturally red, and they add herbs to them. And then they burn them at the end. It stains them.

And my impression is is that there's iron, there's iron in the clay and they do a second firing in oxygen deprived atmospheres to create the black iron oxide. I think that's how they do that. But they're burnished. I guess not the color, but like the burnishing so that they're unglazed, but still not very porous.

Exactly. And it's just the best way to cook. I do almost everything in them. And we even have a thing for making tamales. It's a It's clay. What do you call it steamer. And it's got a clay rack. It's got a little hole in it so you can have more water. It's the most beautiful thing. It's pretty rare.

I like that. I like that and you sell these pots. You're out of stock right now. You're trying to get them back. But you sell these pots in general on your website, right.

And in our store in Napa. Yeah. The fun thing is, though, I met this woman, Lourdes whose family makes them and we did our initial order was for 30. And she told me later because she was making them and thinking this is so stupid gringos either McDonald's, why am I making these pots? No one's gonna cook them. And it was so much fun calling her in a week and saying we completely sold out and sort of breaking stereotypes on both sides of the border. For me, that was a real joy. Oh, nice. We now buy 1000s For every year.

So how long have you had this partnership with them?

Well, I went first. So the company I worked with is called shock. And they make dried, prickly pear, sour prickly pear called Shokan mostly treats. And they going into too much detail just cut me off. But they were all set for export. And I said, Well, that's really sweet. But this is going to be a market. Are there any heirloom beans in there yet? And they said no, no, no, but the mother champion. Oh, there's one in the village. So it turns out because they're everywhere and and just like I did doing beans have been under our nose and no one was really paying attention to them. So because of their situation, they would go to a lot of trade shows and folk art shows and we'd meet the best craftspeople all over Mexico and we started importing similar things. So it was 2008 that I met them. And we've been doing it ever since. And we keep coming back to which I think is also important, because I think a lot of times, moss is the flavor of the day are quite hot cooking is the flavor. And it's like, no, I incorporate this into what we're doing. And if it's really valid, we're we stick with it.

Nice. Now I have a gardening question that I've, I've been waiting to have an actual person who grows things. Now, one of the things a, first of all, I want to know, from your opinion, like what effect local conditions have on the flavor, I know that you write that, you know, they like a certain amount of sunlight, etc, etc. But how much do the local conditions alter the flavor of a particular bean. And so like I'm at like, so you have certain beans that grow really well in Maine or you have certain beans that you know grow really well where you are in Napa, but how much of a difference is there from place to place with a particular beam?

Well, the first thing though, is beans want to grow. So they're really easy to grow compared to other plants. And I think Jack and the Beanstalk happen because they're just so easy. But we had a great being called good mother's dollars. And we had crop failure over and over again. And I remember going to we found seed in Holland, which was really rare. And beans are seeds. So I thought, well, I'll cook a pound to make sure it's okay. And I remember cooking them and thinking these tastes like crap. This is the same bean at all. But we wouldn't hadn't grew them and they were fabulous. So there really was a terroir issue with California and has been. And I'm not, I'm not being cute. I mean it really. I was almost heartbroken when I tasted them, the Dutch ones and then we grew them and say, Oh, it's good mother's dollar. So I think there really is a difference. We also famously became buddies with Marcela Hassan, the Italian Cook, and I asked her at one point, what her favorite being from Italy that she missed the most was and she's from Venice, so I thought she was gonna say Lamone, which is a bore, Lodi couldn't have been. Just no, no, no, it's Serrana beings are my favorite. And if you can bring those, you'll have a customer for life. And it's like, well, lady, I'm not going to turn to you. But yeah. So we imported them. And they've been a huge hit. She unfortunately died. And we call them Marcela with her husband, Victor's blessing in honor of her, but just last year, I went to Serrana to meet the farmers there. And I thought they were going to come at me with pitch forks and knives, taking their beam, and we grow it in California, because in Serrana, it's a very small town, and they can't expand at all. So they couldn't do anywhere near the production weed they need. They couldn't they were so flattered, we've done it. And the most important thing is I called it Marcela instead of Serrana, because they believe there's a total terroir issue as well. But that that really hits the soil and the conditions that make the bean taste different. And I think, I think it's a huge issue. And also, in Mexico, when we grow beans, there's no irrigation at all. It's just seasonal rains, whereas at California, we're completely controlling the irrigation since we don't have summer rain. So I think that really does the all those things affect the flavor,

like do the beans care. So there's another just a random question. Not I mean, obviously, you know, like that we're divided up into a series of growing zones, right. But those growing zones, don't they track only on temperature? Not really on daylight. Right. So, I mean, like the beans do. Well. I mean, like, Do you Do you think it's a mislabeled system? Should they change the system or what?

Well, I think the things that most people grow is probably fine, but we've brought beans in from Mexico. And clearly they need more daylight hours or the altitude thing. I know, the whole family of runner beans need cooler nights. You know, we so we grow them coastally I mean, there's little things like that. But I in general, if you want to do it, you can do it. I mean, you think the South, you know grows butter beans and pigeon peas and things like and Pintos as well, and that's when it's humid. It's hot. I don't know if it ever cools down at night. It's completely different than California, but they're still able to do it.

Man, do you think main beans are such a thing? Because of their long long days because they're so far north and it's like hot enough in the summer because like they really only have like the two seasons. Like is that why they're so good at certain beans?

That could be I wish I would. I don't know. So

I don't have any main beans right now. But I have some I have some Vermont yellow eyes in my house. I'm going to go buy some of your yellow eyes. I'm going to do a California northern Vermont. Yeah. yelloweye side by side but the main people will be mad because they're gonna be like, it wasn't from Maine. It wasn't a it wasn't you know?

Yeah. So it's not a real comparison. Now, the main people are, but I would assume they have a longer delay, but they probably have a shorter season to the weaker one being called buckeye. And it was from Montana. And it's in California, you almost watch it grow. It's so quick. And it's really a great thing to buy I've had developed for their short season. Yeah, I've had your book, I think they were developed for having a short season. One year, we even got to crops and

I was gonna ask that so you can you can do double crops.

The rare, almost never, but this year, we were able to that one year we were able to with our guys, and everyone needs a break at that point to I don't know if you've garden at all, but for me, it's like at the beginning of the season, I'm like, I've got nature and control. She's gonna listen to my whims I've been charged. And by the end of it's like, oh, we just harvest and get this thing over with. It's, it's, I do this every year. And it's always a surprise.

Yeah, something crazy, I didn't realize about because I've never done dried beans like back when I used to have some some plot of land outside the city. I tried beans, but we always harvested them fresh. So I've never taken them to dry, they actually go all three to 15% moisture while they're still on the plant.

Yes, that's when we when people ask where you dry them, and we do it right in the field. So when they're about 15, sometimes 12% moisture, you cut the plant at the base, and then we let them dry in the fields. And that's when we harvest them and then the harvester comes through, and you get them in Windrose. They go up and shoot. They're shaking like crazy. And the beans go in one bin and then the pods go into another and then the pods shoot out into the field with the blade cutting up smaller. So they're gonna go right back as green, but they were, and I'm not. I don't want to go. We do the beans for the flavor, because I think they're great. And it turns out, they're healthy, but they're even conventional beans are really incredibly good for the planet. And so you can plant in the spring harvest in the late fall, and you've got this incredible protein. And I'm not giving up meat and I'm really an omnivore. But what it takes to bring a pound of beef to market versus a pot of beans is insane. So we should be more biddings whether or not you eat

well, so like just out of curiosity, because it seems also like I mean, it takes so many beans to make a pound of beans. So my aim unless you're doing Limas or whatever. But my question is, like how many pounds of beans? Can you get out of an acre the way you do it versus a commercial? I've just I have no reference point for like, I have no reference point for reference point for Alec. How many beans come out of an acre of land?

Yeah, no, I'm probably the worst person I'm trying to. I think we get like three to 6000. And I'm probably gonna have people calling me like an idiot. I don't know. So our yields about a quarter less than conventional beans and sometimes half is what I would say. So we have a lot of farmers who don't want to grow for us because they don't get as much per acre and we say we're paying you more per pound to actually make more money. But there is this macho thing with some farmers like no, I need this many pounds per acre. So that's kind of what we're up against when we are looking for new farmers.

I'm gonna go ahead and say Macho Man was my least favorite. What do you say?

And the heirlooms are fussier to compare to conventional things. Go ahead with the realest people.

Macho Man is like not like everyone listens to macho man, not their greatest song. You know, I'm saying it's not. It's not macho man. Not that. So, back to the question that I was supposed to ask you blessings in the sky, one of our skies, one of our Patreon listeners. By the way, anyone who's listening on the Patreon can call in questions. 2917410 1507. That's 917-410-1507 wants to know. What should they grow in seven B. So are there any beans that I don't even think seven B's? They kind of like where I am, right? New York is like seven B is there? Is there any being that like you've heard does really well in in New York.

I know I'm so unqualified I you know, I called the master gardeners in the area, ask them but beings want to grow. And the beautiful thing is, is you could take one of our billions put it in the ground. And as you get the first true set of leaves, you actually can cook that plant and saute it with butter. It's out of this world. Then it gets flowers. And if you want you can take those flowers and put them in the salad. And they're really beautiful. And if you do a runner beam in particular, they've got really big, almost gaudy lipstick colored flowers mostly. And then you can keep letting it grow and you get a green beam, a probably a string beam and you If you can string them and eat them at that point, then you can get what you were doing before showing being you can show them or you can fully let them mature and get them dried. And it might be you don't get to the dried point, right, maybe not even the showing, but I don't imagine anywhere where you couldn't at least get to the breaking point. Now, for I think they're worth it

on the shelling. I know that you leave Christmas lime is good, right? But a fresh shelled lima bean is like, is like a godly thing. You know what I mean? Like a fresh shelled lima bean. I mean, I mean, am I wrong about how delicious a fresh old lima bean is?

I think so. But I'm from here, or where did you grow up? New York, New York. very telling. I can always tell New York. Okay, that's unusual. I hated lima beans growing up fresh, frozen, dried, I thought they were the most vile things. And usually it was because my mother cooked. The Birdseye vegetable medley that was frozen with potatoes, Limas and carrots. And I thought I would do anything rather than eat these. And I think part of it is because they really taste more like a vegetable than a B. So I think they almost you just have to stop thinking of them as a beam because they are more like a vegetable. And I tried to Christmas Limas were my gateway into loving lima beans. And because they don't taste regular lima beans, they taste like something else. And I used to put them in Gorgonzola sauce. And I was like, this is okay, I can do this. And then little by little I discovered the rest of the Lima family. But I know I really couldn't stand them and to be fresh beans don't taste as developed as the dried ones. And maybe that's the prejudice that I've had to develop. Yeah, that's, that's fair. But something is better dry.

For me. I grew up tolerating Limas because we would have the same line as you're talking about, like in the 70s like the lima bean was a big thing that we had, and they were always kind of pasty, mushy, there's nothing really to recommend them. But the first time I had a fresh ones, and you know, I'm not really concerned with whether or not I get enough nutrition. Like I've always been over nutrition. So I don't feel like I have to cook my lima beans that much. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I know there's antineutrino of things in them, but I've never really worried about it. So just like quick cooked, like, like fresh succotash I had that the first time I made that. Like, you know, when they first started when I first started buying the fresh lime is like, you know, a couple decades ago in the farmers market here. I was like, Oh, damn, man, but Yeah, different. You know,

okay, I'll try it. Yeah, I'll take your advice. Try that. Yeah, I will. Alright, so from little baby line moves, or do you like bigger ones?

No, like, they're almost, they're almost full sized. You know what I mean? Because otherwise, it's kind of more like infanticide because you're not eating the, the, you know the popsicle with it. Okay, so here's some beans that you've written about of yours that I haven't tried yet. Right. I'm going to get to before I get to the questions. I'm gonna get in trouble. Black Calypso, you say they have a russet potato flavor for real, but only but will that flavor go away if you cook it too long.

No, no, no, they taste potato. We we haven't grown that one for years. But it's a great I think other people do. And that's a great thing.

All right, keep my eye out for it.

But it does taste potatoes, as opposed to creamy. I mean, they really are slightly different. Yeah.

So let's talk about that for a second. Now there's dense, there's creamy. So what are you assessing? First with the beanie, assessing the skin, like the thickness or thinness of the skin? The pot liquor, and then the texture. And it can be like anywhere from fudgy meaty, creamy. And but you don't really call beans, mealy, but some of them are kind of mealy. What would you wear? Like where do you how do you? How do you judge a bean?

Well, I think in a funny way, Christmas liners are a little bit mealy, but it's wonderful. But the word mealy isn't what you'd use to mark it. But no, I have an emotional attachment to the beat. So I'll eat it. And like what does it make me feel like? Because I'm not really very scientific. I'm more romantic, I think. And generally, it's a nostalgia thing. And that's why I think, you know, kidney beans and navy beans are so boring. It's like, whatever, they're just filler, when you eat these other and I grew up on those, I think I mean, not really getting it one way or the other. And then eating heirlooms is like, Oh, this is something else. So it's an emotional thing. I think when I personally and often you look at a bean and you think oh, this is this gorgeous golden brown thing. So it's gonna be honey ish and wonderful was like, oh, no, no, it's like umami and you get a different reaction to each one. But the potluck was just as important they're being brought I'm sorry I'm jumping over like somebody all around like a pinball but I think it's also important to cook the beans with just water is the same thing I said before is like out of respect to the beans, this water, onions, garlic, little olive oil. That really is how I judge a beam. And then what happens after that is where I start getting all touchy. Yeah, I've

read multiple times where you're like, please don't please don't tell me that you cooked it with nothing and then say you put a ham hock into it. Like you just have a T shirt that says Don't talk to me about your ham hocks right

now completely and I love him box. But it's a different dish. There's a great chef, cook, Georgia and Brennan here in the Bay Area. And she actually will cook her handbook separate and slice the meat off and then add it to the beam. And it doesn't make sense for a lot of people. It's like, oh, I want slow cook goodness. But it's actually the flavors are sharper, as distinct when you add them after they've cooked on their own sometimes.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, like, I feel like like, now you're gonna get mad. But I have been cooking with a lot of pork just because the recipe I've been working on for the past month is is baked beans, traditional baked beans and a traditional baked bean needs the it needs to mean it's a baked bean. It needs the molasses it needs the I think you know, a pull the sugar back and meets the needs that doesn't need the pork. You can make a vegetarian one but but you get me. So yeah, you know, and one of the beans that you don't mention any of your stuff is one of the big big three main ones is Marfan. Does he have any anything with Carfax so yes, it's not a bean that you've messed around with or know any feelings on more facts.

You know, it's not on my radar. I love that other people are doing it. And I don't need to be a pig about going everybody else is doing it. Really well. That's a great thing beam. That's fine. I'm capitalists echo.

Alright, so baked beans. I know you're coming out coming around more to pressure cooking, but you're still not a fan. Right? See what you think about this. This is what I've been. I've been I've been doing. Oh, one more thing before I even get into that. Would you agree that the two I'll just say this and see whether you agree to have the stupid sayings that we have is find a penny pick it up all the day, you'll have good luck. Not true. It's the opposite to don't bother with the pennies not worth it anymore. The second one is Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more YouTubed because it's the exact opposite. The more you eat beans, the less you too when you eat them true or false.

Very true. And you can imagine this is my favorite subject to go about. But, you know, it just means your body's working for one. And the more you eat beans the more your body is figuring out how to deal with the fiber that you haven't been eating enough of. So don't blame the beans blame it on the rest of your diet. Beans beans when you finally get paid your body's like Well, thank you. Yeah.

Formerly musical. The more you eat the less you to

do exactly. It's something I hear. I hear tale that some people just never get over it and they just get gassy. But it just someone wrote a book called To err is human to a IR is human. And it's like, okay, just get over it farted. It's not a big deal.

Well, some people who get gassy gets painful is the issue about me with everyone. Right? The issue is, is it like if you let's say you haven't eaten in a long time, and a lot of people and I know that we're gonna get into it on this because I know you said we the more scientists you talk to, like the the less they worry about throwing away the bean water right that the soaking in the bean water. However, those scientists probably eat a lot of beans. You know what I'm saying? Like, because there have been studies where they, yeah.

So but with everything I am not is the ice insist, especially when I first started, this is the way it is. And now to me if you're cooking beans, and you want to soak it and change the water, good for you, you're ahead of everybody. So go ahead. Like it's not what I would do, necessarily. But if you find that that works, more power to you, right? Because my family is like not as adamant as I used to be

if you can eat commercial canned beans and not have a problem, what those people do typically is soak it, throw away the water, blanch it and throw away the water and that's why they don't have flavor, right? So they've gotten rid of a lot of the flavor or most of it like soluble sugars and whatnot, but also like coloring and things like this. But like that is how they I mean true and false also like with things like black beans they have they buy black beans with a super high colorant level so that they can do all their processing and have them still come out black instead of gray. Right I mean, so if if you're having

we don't deal with and so I don't know Yeah, I believe that though,

but that's you know, so like if if you can eat if when you cook dried beans you have a problem but when you eat can be injured Don't That to me is the is the, the I'm doing a lot of research on this. But the problem is I don't have access to the equipment to let me test whether or not I've gotten rid of the this raffinose and stack iOS. It's these. It's these. It's these non digestible, you know, OLIO saccharides. That do it to you, right. But can I tell you, I shouldn't even mention this because I haven't tested I don't know if it works. Can I tell you my current thing that I do my end, but I cook I've cooked so many beans in the past couple of months that I probably can't tell any more whether it works because I've just been consuming so many beans. But here's what I do you ready for it, see what you think. I take the beans, I put them in, I soaked them because I'm a lazy right. So I soak them at about 105 degrees Fahrenheit on my induction burn, right. And to that soaking water, I add ice soak it and salt so that it soaks in faster. In fact, you might hate this too, because I know you do. Or you've written that you do ice i i add the full amount of salt that I'm going to use for the recipe because I know how much the beans are going to weigh when they're done. Right. And you know, I cooked a zillion batches of beans and I'm like, oh, you know, this is how much the beans are like putting in a pound of beans, I'm putting in 400 grams because I'm doing baked beans of non bean product. And I know that I'm going to end up with one point, you know, eight kilos of product when I'm done. I just add the salt at the beginning because I know exactly how much I'm going to reduce it. Okay. And I soak it and then I add Urbino to the soak water when it's at a little bit above body temperature. And you can taste it the bean liquor is getting sweet. I know I'm leaching out the sugars, I think the Beano is wiping this stuff out there I had to be nose shut and I don't put the gel cap and I opened the gel cap and dumped a powder and stir it in. Then, you know and also discovered it from all my tests that when you are and I think it's less 40. And the other thing I've noticed is that I tried to for years to do a Suvi bean recipe. And I couldn't get it to work because I think beans need to be cooked in excess water you need to do the open lid. So here's why I think you the pressure cooking recipes are a problem because they don't evaporate enough. I think what you want to do is almost fully cooked the bean open pot and let let the water evaporate, it needs to be an extra water it needs to evaporate and as soon as they start getting soft, that's when you need to slow down the boil. That's when people are shattering their beans when they over boil after they've gone soft. That which I did a test yesterday it's not quite right. So do to cook bake beans ever. It's not your thing because you don't like all the pork and the molasses and stuff.