The dried beans on the gala table were sorted by variety, not by use. Scarlet runner in one jar, tepary in another, a squat white one with no card at all. That is not how a kitchen sorts anything. A kitchen sorts by what’s for dinner.
I know the fairgrounds the way I know the roofline of my own street. I go every August, more than once, and each time I notice something I had not noticed before.
This year I watched the beans for several days. They appeared in jars beneath the white gala tent, sorted by variety and arranged as county abundance. I saw scarlet runners again in a Home Arts case, labeled and judged behind glass. I saw bean seeds offered for free beside tomatoes and marigolds. I did not take any of those.
There were other things to watch. Livestock became numbers. Birdhouses and cutting boards acquired bids in pencil. Children drove small cars through dirt already churned by larger ones. The pigs ran their short course. Music came from the Arena and from somewhere nearer the poultry barn. The fair kept changing its purpose.
On the last day, behind the poultry barn, children were making pictures from dried beans. Some beans went onto paper. Some did not. When the table began to come down, a shallow pan of unused beans remained at the edge. They were the scarlet runners and the small white ones I had seen beneath the tent.
I took what was left. They had spent five days being looked at, judged, offered, and nearly used for something else. They were still beans.
Serves 4
2 cups dried beans (scarlet runner, or a mixed dry white bean) 1 bay leaf 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled olive oil salt 1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced red wine vinegar a small handful parsley leaves
Beans go into a bowl of water the night before and sit until morning, doubled in size.
Drained, they go into a heavy pot with the bay leaf, the garlic, and enough water to cover by two inches. No salt yet. Brought to a bare simmer and left there, mostly covered, for an hour and a half, checked and topped up with water as it drops.
They’re done when a bean gives all the way through without resistance, no chalk left in the center. Salt goes in only now, off the heat, stirred through while the pot still holds its warmth. The garlic cloves get pressed out of their skins into the pot and left to fall apart on their own.
Sliced onion goes into the vinegar to sit for ten minutes and lose its bite.
Beans into a wide bowl, warm, oil poured over generously. Onion and its vinegar scattered on top, parsley last. Eat from the bowl, standing. What’s left goes into a jar in the refrigerator, oil pooled on top to keep the air off.