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The Benevolent Bean
Over 200 recipes from round the world for beans and their relatives with something about their history and newly discovered health giving qualities.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1967
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July 30, 2025Interesting book for Ancel/Margaret Keys completists.
The recipes themselves are worse than I had imagined, though. When they're not incredibly simple (one recipe for bean dip is, and I'm not exaggerating, a can of chili beans with an optional dash of Tobasco hot sauce), they make you question how Margaret and Ancel even survived the recipe testing without heart attacks (see: an entire chapter devoted to six kinds of cassoulet.)
Considering the existence of apparently approved recipes for molded lima bean gelatins served with mayonnaise, it's interesting that the Keys took such a strong stand about the culinary inferiority of fava beans. The book is fun to read for such assertions as that bringing fava seeds to the Americas was "like bringing very poor coals to Newcastle" and chapter headings like "Reluctantly, Broad Beans..."
It's probably not worth going out of your way to buy this book in order to cook your way through it. Its goal appears to be to get people who are eating 0 beans today to find ways to incorporate them into the diet, as opposed to expanding horizons for existing bean enthusiasts. They don't even include recipes for mung beans or adzuki beans, fail to anticipate the popularity of edamame, don't come up with clever hiding places for beans in otherwise familiar dishes, and end up including meat in so many recipes that it will undoubtedly disappoint vegetarians. So it has very limited appeal as a cookbook at this time, considering that it's hard to obtain this book and for the same price it costs to buy it used you could buy one of the pretty good Rancho Gordo bean cookbooks new.
The recipes themselves are worse than I had imagined, though. When they're not incredibly simple (one recipe for bean dip is, and I'm not exaggerating, a can of chili beans with an optional dash of Tobasco hot sauce), they make you question how Margaret and Ancel even survived the recipe testing without heart attacks (see: an entire chapter devoted to six kinds of cassoulet.)
Considering the existence of apparently approved recipes for molded lima bean gelatins served with mayonnaise, it's interesting that the Keys took such a strong stand about the culinary inferiority of fava beans. The book is fun to read for such assertions as that bringing fava seeds to the Americas was "like bringing very poor coals to Newcastle" and chapter headings like "Reluctantly, Broad Beans..."
It's probably not worth going out of your way to buy this book in order to cook your way through it. Its goal appears to be to get people who are eating 0 beans today to find ways to incorporate them into the diet, as opposed to expanding horizons for existing bean enthusiasts. They don't even include recipes for mung beans or adzuki beans, fail to anticipate the popularity of edamame, don't come up with clever hiding places for beans in otherwise familiar dishes, and end up including meat in so many recipes that it will undoubtedly disappoint vegetarians. So it has very limited appeal as a cookbook at this time, considering that it's hard to obtain this book and for the same price it costs to buy it used you could buy one of the pretty good Rancho Gordo bean cookbooks new.
October 3, 2022
Unfortunately, this book is behind the times. The authors talk about textured vegetable protein as if it is a good food. Tempeh doesn't seem to be mentioned at all, even though attention is given to tofu.
Although Ancel Keys is famous for advancing nutrition, his recipes include oil and often meat.
Although Ancel Keys is famous for advancing nutrition, his recipes include oil and often meat.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews