Porotos Granados - A Seed Story and Recipe

 

This is a Seed Story with a recipe for Chilean Shell Bean Soup (to skip to the recipe please scroll down).

Seed Stories

The importance of a seed's ancestry and its journey parallels that of humanity, and increasingly we'd like to recapture the meaning and significance of our ancestral and heritage foods. I believe this is because seeds are the carriers of our cultures- they offer the comfort and spiritual nourishment we are often lacking. The beloved vegetables, grains and fruit of our people, whether we are immigrants, or from a certain region in the US, or Native American, these are precious parts of our cultural and ethnic wellbeing. 

The stories of our seeds are important in honoring our origins and worthy of safekeeping. 

The shell beans are green and tender

Porotos Granados - My Seed Story

Porotos granados is a very popular dish in my home country of Chile. Poroto is the word for bean, and granado means shelled. It's also the name for the bean used to make this stew-like summer food.

Although I was born in Chile, my family immigrated to California when my brother and I were very young. While we were growing up we recall hearing our parents talk lovingly and longingly (a lot!) about a Chilean dish called porotos granados,  It was only as an adult that I realized they were referring to a type of dish made with shell beans, which is the literal translation of ‘porotos granados’. This thick soup is a popular summer dish made with fresh corn, shell beans and winter squash, flavored with sweet basil and paprika. They are also used as a dry bean. 

The porotos granados seeds were sent to me by a generous gardener I met at the 2014 Annual Seed Savers Exchange Conference and Harvest, at Heritage Farm in Decorah Iowa. We sat down to lunch together at the conference to chat about gardening. As we chatted she told me she was going to Chile in a few months to work at a lodge with a chef (Mapuyampay Lodge Gastronomico, near Curicó). She wanted to experience working in the organic garden there, and to cook with the chef, Ruth Van Waerebeek, author of the book I have at home on Chilean food (The Chilean Kitchen). I was impressed by this serendipity! So I told her I would absolutely love to have seeds from the traditional foods, especially corn, beans and squash. In 2017 I received a stash of seeds from her collected from the garden at Mapuyampay. I am extremely grateful that she took the time and care to send them to me. 

The striking red color of the pods

The beans look very similar to the cranberry bean seen in our farmer’s markets in California (sold as shelling beans). They also resemble the Tongue of Fire bean, said to be from Tierra Del Fuego, and could very well be the ancestor of the Italian cranberry bean as it migrated to Europe with the colonists. I did find a reference in a catalog for the traditional seeds of Chile, that the poroto granado is "reputed to be from Araucania" which is central & southern Chile, and unceded Mapuche lands (People of the Earth, or Land).

The dried beans are also used in cooking

Porotos Granados with paprika oil

Porotos Granados Recipe

The following recipes were modified from the book by Ruth Van Waerebeek, The Chilean Kitchen. Used copies can be found on the internet.

Ingredients  

Olive oil, or other vegetable oil 

1 medium yellow onion diced 

1 clove of minced garlic 

Salt, paprika, pepper to taste 

2 ½ to 3 lb of porotos granados (or cranberry beans) in pods (at the shelling bean stage) 

2 fresh sweet corn cobs (about 2 cups of cut kernels) 

1/2 lb of winter, orange fleshed squash (called zapallo comote in Chile) 

8 sweet basil leaves or to taste

Method

Prepare the vegetables: shell the beans from their pods, cut the corn from the cobs, wash and chop the squash into medium-sized cubes. 

In a large pot, add enough water to cover the beans and chopped squash, add a little salt and about 4 basil leaves. Cook over medium heat for about 20-30 minutes. 

Sauté the garlic and onion in the oil (don’t burn) until translucent and soft; add 3-4 chopped basil leaves and the spices, stir and sauté for a few more minutes. Add to the beans when done cooking. 

Puree ½ to ¾ of the cut corn in a blender. Add the cut corn and corn from the blender to the pot of beans (when beans are done), stir well, and cook for about 5-10 more minutes. The soup should be thick, and not too soupy- but add water if needed during cooking to thin it. 

Serve with chopped basil on top, and if desired, drizzle “color chileana” on the soup (see recipe below). 

Color Chileana or Paprika Oil (Color is pronounced as in Spanish, có lor, slight accent at the front end) 

¼ cup oil or lard 

1 clove garlic, crushed 

½ tablespoon of sweet (or smoked paprika is nice too) 

Heat the lard or oil in a small pan, add the crushed garlic and sauté gently for about one minute (don’t burn). Discard the garlic, remove pan from heat and stir in the paprika. 

 *Chilean food is fairly bland- so we sauteéd some ají verde with the onions for some mild heat, or you can add some smoked chipotle powder!*

Enjoy!

                                                                                        Photos: Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke

Rejuvenation Through Saving Seeds

"Institutions do not save seeds- humans with hearts do."

- Dr. Gary Paul Nabhan, 2013 Annual Conference and Campout, Seed Savers Exchange

This post was updated on July 22, 2017

This year I attended the 37th Annual EcoFarm Conference held at Asilomar in Pacific Grove, California, as a gift to myself at the start of the new year. I greatly looked forward to spending quality time with organic growers and advocates. I always learn something, connect with interesting people, and return rejuvenated and inspired with a renewed commitment to my work with edibles and seed saving. The theme of this years' conference was 'Cultivating Diversity', as in people, as well as seeds. It's a theme close to my heart, as an immigrant and a seed steward.

So I got to thinking about seeds and my ancestral origins. And as I day-dreamed about the coming spring planting season, strong emotions were stirring within. I'm passionate about seeds- they truly stir up my emotional side. It's taken me a while to understand why and to be able to begin to express it words. Seeds, especially for edibles, have been saved by humans for many thousands of years. First Nation Peoples consider them as "living, breathing, ancestors" in a literal, not figurative sense. And in fact, viable seeds ARE alive, and they are handed down through families and communities to this day, although alarmingly, much less so. These are true heirloom varieties that are a crucial means by which we carry on our culture, whether it's rooted in Native American traditions or in a family group of immigrants, perhaps generations ago.

In my family, favas are a must-have spring food that I grow annually

We all have family food stories with origins in those who came before us, if we dig deep enough. For immigrants like me, those connections to my cultural foods are strong. I arrived in the USA with my parents and brother from Chile many years ago as an infant, but I grew up around an extended family and community of Chileans. It was years into adulthood before I realized that many of our favorite Chilean dishes originated with Native Peoples in the region, especially the Mapuche ("people of the earth"). In fact many of our words in Chilean Spanish have their roots in Mapuche language (Mapudungun).

Beans and fresh corn with basil is a typical Chilean food combination

So it's not surprising that my garden reflects my cultural roots, a mix of what the European conquistadors brought with them and Native foods: different types of common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris), fava beans, salad greens, artichokes, squashes, and various perennial herbs are my staples, including two shrubs of Lemon Verbena for herbal tea (Aloysia triphylla), native to Chile and Argentina. 

Squash is another family favorite 

I recently received a precious gift of seeds from Chile: winter squash, beans, a sweet pimento pepper and a spicy pepper, plus corn seeds with which to make a favorite national dish, pastel de choclo (derived from the Mapuche word for corn). Through my research I discovered that some of the old seed varieties are stewarded by dedicated guadadores de semillas or seed savers, same as in the USA, but not accessible to me, (as far as I know). 

My harvest of beautiful runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus)

I have been conducting seed trials of heirloom seeds as a volunteer for Seed Savers Exchange for several years, and this work as been very satisfying. At the 2017 EcoFarm conference I was fortunate to meet Rowen White , a Mohawk Seed Keeper and seed advocate. I participated in her 'Seed Seva' online mentoring course that weaves Native Peoples' traditional seed practices into gardening and farming training. She's a very knowledgeable and precious mentor.

My current focus is cultivating seeds of my Chilean and Native origin crops in a responsible manner, and putting my effort into growing, eating, and respectfully maintaining these- it's a way to connect with my own ancestors. It is both tragic and traumatic that many tribes have lost the seeds specific to their People as an outcome of colonization- seeds that were essential to the continuation of their cultures. A good place to start is Native Seeds/Search in Arizona, specializing in seeds for crops suited to arid areas, as well as Indigenous in origin (quite relevant to our dry and warming climate in California).

My passion for saving seeds has been rejuvenated by these living seeds and honoring my ancestors from the southern continent.
                                        

Photos: Patricia Larenas, Urban Artichoke