Book Review

The Bean Bible: A Legumaniac's Guide to Lentils, Peas, and Every Bean on the Planet!
by Aliza Green
Review by Jake Aryeh Marcus

Aliza Green, one of the chefs responsible for Philadelphia's restaurant renaissance of the 1970's and 80's, has used her awesome skill with food to create another kind of master work: The Bean Bible. In this book, Green manages to encompass dictionary, encyclopedia, history book, medical lesson, and, of course, cookbook. It is cliché but nonetheless true to say that there is nothing you might want to know about beans that you can not find in this book.

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In her chapter on "The History and Gastronomic Importance of Legumes," we learn bits about legumes in children's stories, the role of the bean in Ancient Greek and Roman society and, my personal favorite, that St. Jerome "forbade beans to the nuns in his charge on the grounds that 'they tickle the genitals.'" And that is not the only reference to the purported erotic nature of farting.

Flatulence as a theme recurs, as well it must in a book about beans, but Green addresses it, both in history and in purely practical terms. She explains precisely why some beans are difficult to digest, and claims that if her instructions for preparation are followed, processing of beans in the intestines will go without incident.

Green, in the chapter called "A Legume Primer," creates an exhaustive "Legume Family Tree" dividing this food into four major branches: Old World Legumes (beans, peas, lentils); New World Legumes (4,000 varieties of common beans as well as limas and runner beans, tepary beans and peanuts)' Asian and African Legumes (including more than 1,000 varieties of soybeans and well as black-eyed peas); and Unusual Legumes. She then proceeds to give fascinating and useful information about many beans in each of these categories. Included also is a significant section on soybean products, but she admits that tofu deserves a book of its own and gives it just the right amount of space for this book.

In Honey from a Weed, author Patience Gray writes, and Green quotes, a maxim that permeates the remainder of Green's book concerning the choosing, storing, preparing, and cooking of legumes:

There is a broad dividing line in cooking between those things which are delicious in themselves - their taste has only to be revealed - and those things which, however nourishing they may be, are more properly vehicles for absorbing flavor. So one needs to cultivate a knowledge of what flavours to communicate, and an awareness of the manner in which they are absorbed, when cooking beans.

To reach this lofty goal, there is nothing that that this book lacks for the aspiring cook of legumes. It is not a cookbook with glossy photographs of lovely food displays. This is a collection of recipes divided into meals categories and this thick bundle of dish instructions is surrounded by a work of serious scholarship.

Despite the depth with which this subject is explored, there isn't a dull moment in The Bean Bible. Green has an accessible writing style and the same passion that inspires her to make sure she includes an extensive glossary as well as a section on bean sources also inspires her to include a sidebar to her Artichokes with Fava Beans recipe concerning the preparation of fresh artichokes. She wants you to know that artichoke trimmings are so fibrous they may damage your sink disposal. Eliza Green is just that complete.

Unfortunately, only about half of the recipes are vegetarian and of those many fewer are vegan. However, The Bean Bible will generally give the cook such an intimate understanding of the food that whether substitutions necessary to make a recipe into a vegan dish are possible should be clear.

Legumes are a mainstay of many a vegan's diet. If one wants to know this food source well, The Bean Bible is an essential book for the vegan library.

Order The Bean Bible Now!

Jake Aryeh Marcus is a lawyer, freelance writer and editor, and work-at-home mom to unschooling sons Luca, Nicky, and Aidan. Jake's writing has appeared in The Compleat Mother, The Family Life Journal, and elsewhere. Jake and her family live in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

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