I spent the past week watching probably too much coverage of the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in Italy while eating the perfect amount of Italian food filled with Rosso di Lucca beans. As the newest bean to our line up, we haven't heard much about what people think of these beans. I really like them and think they are pretty unique compared to the other beans on the farm. Once you cook them, let us know what you think about them!
Rosso di Lucca: A Tuscan Red Bean
Before this week, I had a hard time finding much information about the Rosso di Lucca beans.
Then I found a 200 page report entitled “The Beans of the Lucca Region” published in Italian in 2008 by the Regional Agency for Development and Innovation in the Agriculture and Forestry Sector of Tuscany. Here’s what I learned.
Rosso di Lucca beans hail from the Lucca province of Tuscany, Italy. Lucca is about 30 minutes east of the Ligurian Sea and an hour west of Florence. While many white and brown Italian beans exist, the Rosso di Lucca is unique with its deep red color and scratchy markings.
These beans have been cultivated in the area since the 19th century. The region is known for its fertile lands where many different beans are grown including a rare Scritto di Lucca (like the Rosso but brown/tan) and a more ubiquitous Cannellini bean. In this part of Tuscany, the importance of beans in the diet stems from having the perfect growing conditions to grow them: a temperate climate, loose and pebbly soils, and plentiful water in local streams.
Beans were historically and still are an important staple of Lucchese peasant cuisine. Rosso di Lucca beans were eaten regularly as the main source of protein with farro and polenta and whatever vegetables people had growing in their gardens. The striking color of Rosso di Lucca beans and their texture make them perfect to blend into bean purees to add to different dishes.
Their robust flavor makes them a key ingredient in Zuppa alla Frantoiana, a hearty Tuscan vegetable soup, as well as Zuppa di Farro alla Garfagnana, a bean and farro soup. They would also be great in a venison stew served over polenta. Other preparations of the beans include Farinata, a combination of the pureed beans in polenta served with kale, as well as “all’uccelletto” where beans are braised with tomato. They also pair well with a glass of Chianti or Rosso di Montalcino.
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First are the Rosso di Lucca in the field at Tookey Farm before we harvested. You can see that this organic system has lots of ground cover and a mix of beans and weeds. Second is our team has finished the harvest and has loaded half of the plants into our trailer to drive it back to Boonville from Healdsburg.
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As part of the peasant diet, these beans were mostly grown by families for their own consumption, not by farmers. The movement of people from rural Italy to the cities in the 1960s led to the decline of subsistence farming in the region and with that the widespread home cultivation of Rosso di Lucca beans. People shifted to eating a more meat heavy diet as they became more wealthy and moved away from the peasant food culture of simple vegetable dishes.
"The evolution of markets and consumption, therefore, is witnessing a return to origins, a search for typical and distinctive flavors and a rejection of the homogenization and standardization of products that always appear the same in distant places, geographically and culturally." (I Fagioli della Lucchesia)
And like many other low producing beans that are hard to commercialize, large-scale cultivation of Rosso di Lucca beans never really took off, and instead it was up to homesteaders in the area to preserve the seed. Their popularity in Italy has recently increased as people became interested in eating traditional Lecchese soups as well as a distinction for the bean from the Slow Food Movement. And we have the Tuscan families to thank for saving seed and growing these beans in their fields year after year so that we can enjoy them here in the U.S.
Just like some of our Zolfini beans, the Rosso di Lucca beans were grown by Sammy Tookey of Tookey Farms in Healdsburg, CA. We harvested these beans on September 17 and threshed them on the 22nd. Overall, Sammy produced over 700 pounds of Rosso di Lucca beans for us. And while I'm still experimenting with them in the kitchen, I've really enjoyed eating them.
How to Cook Rosso di Lucca Beans
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This week, our recipes skew quite Italian (minus the first recipe in the list). I wanted to find a lot of recipes that were traditional to the Tuscan region of Lucca, where these red beans are from, as well as a few other Italian recipes that would seem like the right fit. It might look like a lot of brown and beige things in brown bowls, but I have to say that it was a delicious week cooking through these recipes.
These beans were our new addition this year, but I've already cooked 5 or more pounds of them since November. Visually I think they are the most beautiful bean in our lineup. Texture wise, Rosso di Lucca have a bit more starchiness to them than Zolfini or Southwest Gold beans, but they have a really robust flavor. They aren't earthy like Brown Tepary beans but have a bit more oomph to them than the Zolfini.
For recipe conversions, 1 can of beans is about 1.5 cups of cooked beans. 1 pound of dry beans equals about 6 cups of cooked beans.
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Salad
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Chickpea Sumac Salad (but with Rosso Di Lucca Beans) Since the Rosso beans have that starchier texture, I looked at different recipes that call for chickpeas to see if these beans would be a good substitute. And they were! I made this sumac salad as a side for a dinner with friends. I would describe it as the tangiest bean dish I've ever eaten. Sumac is a really cool spice whose flavor is zingy and very lemony. And that paired with the pomegranate molasses was such a bright flavor to enjoy on a cold winter night. I used chopped arugula instead of Italian parsley and marinated the beans with the onions and dressing for about an hour before serving. Serve it alongside something rich in order to cut the fat with the sumac's brightness. Bean use: The recipe calls for 6 cups of cooked beans (1 pound dry) which makes A LOT. Halve or quarter the recipe based on how many cups of beans you want at the end and it will still come out great.
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Soups
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Zuppa alla Frantoiana I came across this recipe while searching specifically for recipes from Tuscany (and the Lucca area) to honor the Rosso di Lucca bean. This soup delivered. It is absolutely packed with vegetables in the most comforting way. We ate this with a group of friends and watched the first night of the Milano Cortina Olympics coverage.
Here's how I modified the recipe: I sautéed all the vegetables instead of just boiling them to give them more flavor and added them to a large dutch oven in the following order: onions/leek/garlic, celery/carrot/onion, fennel, squash, zucchini, kale/cabbage. Then added the tomato paste and sage before adding water to give it broth. I used all Rosso di Lucca beans. Once they were cooked, I did not mash them but just added them from the pot into the soup (now understanding the tradition of blending the beans, next time I would add the bean puree!). I really enjoyed how many different vegetables were in here and how hearty it was. Bean Use: This calls for 1.5 cups of dry beans. I ended up cooking a full pound to use with other recipes for the week and used about half of the pot for the soup to get the ratio of beans to vegetables that seemed most pleasing to me.
Zuppa di Farro alla Garfagnana Here's a soup recipe from Giada that I haven't tried yet (one can only eat so much bean soup!), but is also from a town (Garfagnana) in the Lucca province of Italy that perfectly honors these beans. If you want an even heartier soup, this one combines the Rosso di Lucca beans, farro, and a few vegetables. Finish it with a drizzle of good olive oil, too. In researching more about cuisine from Lucca, you can buy bags of mixed uncooked farro and dry beans for the base of this soup. Bean use: 1 cup dry beans or about 3 cups cooked beans.
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Braised(ish) Beans
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Braised Cauliflower and White Bean Piccata If I had to pick a favorite new recipe for the month, it would be this cauliflower piccata. While we normally grocery shop according to our list of meals for the week, Gideon had picked up a rogue cauliflower with no real plans to use it. With a big batch of Rosso beans in the fridge, I came across this recipe and knew I wanted to try it. I don't think I had ever had "picatta" (main flavors being lemon juice, butter, and capers) before? I thought the Rosso beans would be a good swap to give the very beige dish a pop of color and contrast. It was quick to make and really flavorful with the capers and garlic. After trying a bite, I immediately texted 5 friends with "You have to try this recipe. It's so good." It's a great weeknight dinner that transitions nicely to lunch for the next few days. Bean use: 3 cups cooked or however feels like the right amount based on the size of your cauliflower.
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Fagioli all'uccelletto This Tuscan recipe is for a simple pot of beans braised in a cherry tomato sauce with sage leaves. I used a bag of frozen sungold tomatoes from my summer garden and cooked them down a bit before adding the beans and our Calabrian chile flakes. Like most peasant recipes from Italy, the short list of ingredients still leads to big flavor. I added a big drizzle of spicy olive oil to finish and cooked up a pork sausage to eat alongside it. While I eat plenty of tomato and bean dishes, this was the first that I've made in a while that wasn't a pot of Chili and it was a welcome change in flavor. Bean use: This is another recipe that calls for a full pound of dry beans but it's easy to cut down. I halved the recipe and used 3 cups of cooked beans.
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Paniscia (Risotto with Beans) While this is not a Tuscan dish from Lucca, this rich risotto is traditional to the Piedmont region in the northwest corner of Italy. It features cabbage, beans, and soft salami plus tomato paste and red wine to really deepen the flavor. This recipe makes a solid amount of risotto, but for my first time making risotto the directions worked very well. I ended up with a nice toothsome rice that wasn't too mushy or gloopy, full of different textured ingredients and flavors. We served this with a simple green salad and extra parmesan cheese to top the bowl. Follow the link to a Reddit page and then you'll have to expand one of the comments for the pasted recipe. Bean use: 1.5 cups of cooked beans.
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