Monday, January 25, 2010

pasta e fagioli? pasta fazool? pasta and beans?


It rained heavily all morning. When I drove home from campus, I drove through deep puddles. The fields along Cemetery Road were completely submerged. In the summer, corn and winter squash grow in them. Today, they looked like a marsh. I could only see the gold tips of the cover crops. Everything else was under water. Then, I drove home and made pasta and beans.

Pasta and beans goes by many names. Pasta and beans is only one of them, but here, its monikers are not what interest me. What interests me is food and how the poor feed themselves, not just the Italian poor with their pasta e fagioli, but the poor around the world. What I'm saying is that pasta and beans is world staple. It's pasta and beans in one place, beans and rice in another place, beignets and beans in still another, and beans on toast in yet one more. The point is, pasta and beans is beans and a starch, and it's everywhere. Even here in Northampton.


That's some leftover American Chop that I added some beans to. It was pretty good. In fact, it was really good. It was so delicious that, when the leftover American Chop ran out, I went in for some straight-up pasta and beans. I decided to go with campanelle instead of elbow macaroni, though when I say "decided," I mean I had some Barilla campanelle in my pantry.

beans on toast (nice, Hungry Ghost toast)

Anyway, I just went onto the Barilla website and they don't recommend pairing their campanelle with beans. They recommend pairing it with some nice Barilla pasta sauce, which isn't a huge surprise.

Lastly, if you want to learn how to cook dried beans, see my post called Beans, Beans, Beans. And if you don't know how to cook pasta...







1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mr. Andrew Sola referred to a diet of beans as one that could "replace" a McDonalds fervor. I have tried to adapt. It isn't slop. At any rate anybody that has the money should fly to Mazetlan, Mexico and blow a bunch of cash on the food there.