The Rev. Dana Prom Smith, S.T.D.,
Ph.D. (2/10/2013)
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Small
children often think that the bigger the box the better the gift. I know I did, and my mother frequently
cautioned me that many times the best things come in small packages, such as
diamond rings. She gave me an amethyst ring when I graduated from high school
and a gold pen and pencil set when I graduated from college, all in small
packages. A widow with three boys to rear
during the Great Depression, she didn’t have much disposable money for luxuries
so those gifts were dear. I still use fountain
pen with all of its memories much to the befuddlement of my students at The
Literacy Center who know only that dreary device, the ball point pen.
Another
small package is the French bean, haricot Comtesse de Chambord (Phaseolus vulgaris.) It’s so small that commercial growers
won’t bother with it. Since it can’t be
found in commercial markets, we have to grow it ourselves, and like that gold
pen and pencil set, it’s a treasure. In
an era of industrial agriculture which is too big to bother with small things,
I’ve found once again that small is best.
Originally
called an Hungarian rice bean, it was baptized Comtesse de Chambord which
sounds a lot better than “Hungarian rice bean.”
As the song writer Larry Siegel penned:
“Everything sounds better in French,” especially when it’s gustatory or
culinary. The longer I grow vegetables,
the less inclined I am to grow vegetables easily purchased at the supermarket. If I had the skill, knowledge, and means to
build a car from the ground up, I sure wouldn’t build a Ford or a Chevy, much
less a Mercedes Benz. I’d want something
unique. Why grow the old familiar as
long as you can grow a unique and rare heirloom?
First,
the Comtesse de Chambord bean is on the endangered list. The seeds are hard to find, but there’s a
source in
They’re easy to grow,
especially in containers, and they’re bountiful. A semi-vining bush bean, they require only a
modest wire cage, growing no more that three feet at the most. The pod is only about three inches long and
can be eaten much like a sugar snap, fresh and sweet, right off the vine, or as
with other green bean pods, blanched or sautéed. The beans themselves are white and about ¼ in
long. They don’t have to be soaked
overnight, requiring soaking for only about fifteen minutes. The taste is sweet, and they do well in
salads as well as stews, soups, and cassoulets.
The
bean is named after the Comtesse de Chambord, the Archduchess Maria-Theresa de
Modena, the wife and then widow of Le Comte de Chambord, at one time a
pretender to the French throne. Maria-Theresa
was his second cousin and second choice, his first being her younger and more beautiful
sister; however, although she was reported to be less attractive, Maria-Theresa
was wealthier. The Comte de Chambord rose
is named for him and is recommended by David Austin. A Portland
The
Comtesse de Chambord does well in a well-composted soil, the seeds planted
about 6 inches apart, an inch deep, and about 2 feet apart if planted in
rows. I’ve found them to do very well in
containers in concentric circles about a foot apart. Also, they can be planted outside in May
surrounded by Walls o’ Water which not only provide the seeds with a circular
green house but also the seedlings with protection from ground squirrels. Once our plants began to mature, our resident ground
squirrel, Elvis, lost interest.
The phrase “less is more”
first coined by Robert Browning in his poem “Andrea del Sarto” fits our
diminutive haricot Comtesse de Chambord when small is best.
Copyright
© Dana Prom Smith 2013
Dana Prom Smith and Freddi Steele edit
Gardening Etcetera. Smith may be emailed
at stpauls@npgcable.com and blogs at http://highcountrygardener.blogspot.com.
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2 comments:
Thanks for this article. I grew a few of these 2 yr. ago, but the seeds are much smaller than in your photo. FWIW.
I have the same experience. Small bean and very thin oval seed.
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