I don't know beans about pulses

I grew up in Boston, MA, aka, Beantown. Brown bread, hot dogs, and Boston baked beans were a frequent, Saturday night dinner (supper) standard. I even learned, somewhere along the line, that beans are a form of legumes. It was not until this morning, when I discovered that today is World Pulses Day, that I found out that legumes are pulses.

If I had been more diligent in reading my copy of Bean by Bean, a cookbook,  I could have known, before today, that:

Lentils and "pulses" (an archaic term used for legumes of all kinds, including peas and beans) are mentioned four times in the Old Testament: Genesis 25, Samuel 17, Samuel 23, and Ezekiel 4. (This is the passage that spawned the natural foods company Ezekiel 4:9, which bakes many type of bread; ironically, although their bread itself is delicious, the biblical verse mentioning it views the bread as punishment rations, part of an elaborate penance meted out for the sins of the House of Israel and the House of Judah.) [p. 57]

We still have baked beans (from cans) for supper some nights. Last Summer (remember Summers?) we were going to plant a three sisters garden, which includes beans as one of the sisters. It never happened. Maybe this year? We enjoy chili with and without beans. The Better Half makes a delicious bean soup, and a ham and split pea soup that really hits the spot. I'm not unfamiliar with beans and peas. Lentils are a different story. But, until this morning, I was absolutely unaware that legumes = pulses. I always thought a pulse is what the nurse checks for in your wrist. We have once again proven that one is never too old to learn something new.

It's very unlikely I'll try to do my part to help repair our broken climate by foregoing meat. I can, with little disruption to my long established diet, eat less meat and more pulses. Think that might work with your family?

February hoarfrost

Photo by J. Harrington

One thing we never had in Boston, as far as I remember, was hoarfrost. There was some gorgeous frosting on the trees this morning. I hope you got to enjoy something as beautiful.

Wildwood Flower

Kathryn Stripling Byer

I hoe thawed ground
with a vengeance. Winter has left
my house empty of dried beans
and meat. I am hungry

and now that a few buds appear
on the sycamore, I watch the road
winding down this dark mountain
not even the mule can climb
without a struggle. Long daylight

and nobody comes while my husband
traps rabbits, chops firewood, or 
walks away into the thicket. Abandoned
to hoot owls and copperheads,

I begin to fear sickness. I wait
for pneumonia and lockjaw. Each month
I brew squaw tea for pain.
In the stream where I scrub my own blood
from rags, I see all things flow
down from me into the valley.

Once I climbed the ridge
to the place where the sky
comes. Beyond me the mountains continued
like God. Is there no place to hide
from His silence? A woman must work

else she thinks too much. I hoe
this earth until I think of nothing
but the beans I will string,
the sweet corn I will grind into meal.

We must eat. I will learn
to be grateful for whatever comes to me.

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