COOL FOOD : Garbanzo Journalism

Beans--garbanzo beans, fava beans, blackeyed peas, limas, white beans, red beans, pintos and the like--have traditionally been available, in American markets, only in preserved form: dried, canned or frozen. There’s nothing wrong with dried beans, of course, and even frozen or canned ones are sometimes perfectly usable.

But in recent years, fresh beans, especially favas and limas (and occasionally black-eyed peas), have started showing up around here--primarily in the city’s ever-expanding farmer’s markets, but occasionally in supermarkets too. And guess what? Not only do they cook much faster than dried beans, but they mostly taste quite different--better--than preserved beans. I’d go so far as to call them a wonderful “new” culinary resource.

Unfortunately, fresh beans almost always take a lot of work. Peas, a relative of beans, pop out of their thin, crisp pods quite easily--which is probably why they’ve long been sold fresh. Limas, on the other hand, have thick, cushiony pods that take strong pressure to undo and never open neatly. Black-eyed peas are enclosed in sheer, tight casings that burst open readily if they’re dry enough, but that cling for dear life to the peas inside if they’re the least bit greenish. Favas usually aren’t too hard to coax from their pods, which are a bit like thicker, mushier versions of peapods; but unless you’re going to cook them an unfashionably long time (as the Spanish and Italians, incidentally, are quite happy to do), you have to slip them out of their skins as well--a procedure that involves parboiling and then a good deal of gentle one-at-a-time bean-squeezing.

It’s hardly surprising, then, that to a lot of people, fresh beans (apart from green beans) simply aren’t worth the trouble. I am not, however, one of those people. The flavor and texture of fresh beans, to me, are more than ample recompense for the necessary labor. And thus, when I recently encountered fresh garbanzos for the first time in my life, at my local growers market, I didn’t think twice about grabbing them.

Garbanzos, also called chick peas (from the same Latin root as the Italian ceci and the French pois chiches), are widely eaten throughout the Mediterranean, the Middle East, Africa, India, and Central and South America. Domesticated as early as 5000 B.C.--they were grown in the Hanging Gardens of Babylon--garbanzos are particularly suited to dry climates, requiring very little water to flourish. This explains their especial popularity in arid Spain and in the deserts of the eastern Mediterranean.

High in carbohydrates, protein, and various beneficial minerals, garbanzos are also quite versatile. They plump up all manner of soups and stews and hotpots. Mashed up, they’re the basis of falafel, and pureed and seasoned they yield hummus. The crepe-like socca and farinata of Nice and Liguria, respectively, are made with garbanzo flour.

The great Roman orator Cicero is said to have taken his name from cicer , the Latin word for garbanzo, because he had a cicer- shaped wart on his nose. Garbanzos even figured in one of the more infamous moments in European history, the so-called Sicilian Vespers--a bloody uprising by the Sicilians against their French rulers on Easter Monday, 1282. To escape mob violence, many of the French on the island disguised themselves as natives. To weed out these imposters, the real Sicilians asked them to pronounce the local dialect name for garbanzos, ceceri. The French were incapable of pronouncing the word correctly, invariably accenting it on the last syllable instead of the first. For this error, they were slain.

Anyway . . . The fresh garbanzos I found at the farmers’ market were $5 a bale, and I do mean bale--a big twine-bound bundle of whole uprooted garbanzo plants, each about two feet long. The whole package measured approximately three feet across and two feet high. In other words, I’m talking roughly 12 cubic feet of leguminous raw material here. And I’m talking work .

First, I had to remove the individual pods from the plants. Some plants sported a dozen or so pods, some only three or four--but they weren’t clustered together like grapes, and they didn’t shake off. If I tried grabbing a handful of adjacent ones, I’d get not just the pods but a ration of stems and leaves--which looked rather like oversized, deckle-edged thyme--in the bargain. About all I could do, then, was to pick them off one at a time. This process took me almost two hours, and my hands ended up not only tired but blackened, as if by soot. (I’m not sure what the source of the blackness was, but it wasn’t pesticides; these were organic garbanzos.)

Then I started on the pods. About the size and shape of large, elongated green olives, they were papery and stubborn. Some pods contained a single bean, and with these one could usually pop the bean out by squeezing the beanless end. Others contained two beans, and these pods had to be literally twisted and then torn apart, an action that often partially crushed the beans inside. To my initial surprise--though of course it made perfect sense once I stopped to think about it--most of the beans were green, either fresh and pea-colored or fading towards sea green. Only about one in 20 had begun to dry and was approaching the usual yellow-beige of garbanzos.

I think I must have ended up with literally a thousand or more pods, and I worked on them in shifts, over a three-night period, while my wife periodically walked by with a remark about the state of my mental health.

A total of six hours (and a sore pod-popping index finger) later, I had reduced my bale to about four-and-a-half pounds of shelled garbanzos. Then came the moment of truth: I boiled some water in a big pot and tossed about a pound’s worth in. In 10 minutes, they were cooked perfectly, done through but still slightly firm as I popped one into my mouth. They were delicious--vaguely earthy and vaguely greenish-tasting, like a cross between conventional dried or canned garbanzos and fresh-hulled peas.

I served the rest of that first pound for dinner, seasoned just with butter and sea salt. Then I tried them in a dish I’ve often made with reconstituted dried garbanzos, mixed with sauteed onion and tomato, topped with the Catalan garlic sauce allioli and then gratineed. I tossed another lot with penne pasta, shredded prosciutto and freshly-grated Parmesan. I added some to salad. And I pureed some, pushed them through a sieve to filter out the skins, and turned them into cold soup. They were worth the trouble. I wouldn’t have missed them for the world.

But would I buy, and pick, and shell fresh garbanzos again? Probably not. As Voltaire once said, in quite another context, “Once a philosopher, twice a pervert.”

GARBANZOS WITH GARLIC MOUSSELINE

2 ounces thick-cut bacon, cut into 1/2 inch cubes

1 ounce prosciutto, diced

Olive oil

2 onions, chopped

1 tomato peeled, seeded and chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

4 cups cooked garbanzos (about 1 1/3 cups dry)

Salt, pepper

Mussolina d’All

In large skillet, fry bacon and prosciutto in small amount oil until lightly browned. Remove and drain on paper towels.

Pour off excess fat, leaving enough to cover bottom. Add onions, tomato and garlic and cook until all liquid has evaporated, mixture has turned dark, and tomatoes have begun to blend into onions.

Add bacon, prosciutto and garbanzos, mix well and cook over low heat about 5 minutes.

Season to taste with salt and pepper. Flatten mixture gently with wooden spooon and spread Mussolina d’All over top. Brown briefly under broiler until topping begins to puff up. Makes 4 appetizer servings.

Mussolina d’All

12 cloves garlic

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 egg yolks

1 cup mild extra-virgin olive oil

Roast garlic, unpeeled, in 350 degree oven 30 minutes.

Cool, then cut root end off each clove and squeeze garlic into bowl. Mash gently in bowl. Add salt, egg yolks and then slowly, by hand or in food processor, add oil until emulsion forms. Makes about 1 cup.