Scarlet Runner Beans

Sept. 30, 2009

Inspiring colours of the scarlet runner bean.
Small beans can be eaten with the skin when they are still tender.
Larger beans have tough skin with fibrous threads.
Let them grow and the fibrous threads function like a string that opens up the pod. See below.

These beans podded, produced the following.

Inspiring colours lie within—even the white spot where the bean was attached to the shell is interesting to the eye. Funky scarlet beans make me want to sponge paint a royal purple on hot pink.

The lime green of the been inside the skin reminds me of a mini-dress that my girlfriend kept borrowing from me. It was funky too.

Too bad necessary cooking blands the colours. Resist the desire to present them in their colourful form. They contain lectin and
cooking them properly is extremely important:

Raw beans should never be eaten. Boil for a minimum of ten minutes. Even green beans, such as French or runner beans, contain a small amount of lectins and should not be eaten raw. Do not cook in a slow cooker as the temperatures will not get high enough and can become even more toxic than in the raw form.
More info - read Curse of the lectins.

I pre-cooked them along with dried chick peas which I had presoaked (however I could have soaked them much longer) and threw them both in the stuffing for my baked tomatoes/zucchini.

Little known fact: The plant is a perennial with tuberous roots. It is usually treated as an annual.