January 26, 2006

Bean Waiting

In Guatemala black beans are prepared slowly, simply and saltily

by Moira Peters

The Dominion - http://www.dominionpaper.ca

My bean-cooking tutor, eighteen-year-old Elida, finds a sunny spot where she crouches to painstakingly sort through the dried legumes, removing cracked, chipped or otherwise imperfect beans, saving them for planting. If included, she explains, they would make the rest of the beans taste bitter. Elida rinses the selected beans and dumps them, along with an outrageous amount of salt and half a minced onion, in a barro (clay) pot filled with water. She boils them over a low fire all day long, adding firewood and water as needed.

Gastronomic heaven can be reached by blending the cooked beans with their own broth and frying them in lots of oil and more onions. Eaten before market Friday mornings on crisp, roasted tortillas with fresh cheese, frijoles colados instantly became my favorite food in Guatemala. I still make them, as an accompaniment to scrambled eggs and toast, as bean dip for parties, or sometimes, with hot corn tortillas and feta cheese, in memory of the Perfect Flavour Combo found only in dirt floor, open-fire kitchens in the Guatemalan highlands.