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Green beans and runner beans

There’s no real substitute for the satisfying crunch and bite of juicy green beans. This is the vegetable that comes closest to asparagus in the sophisticated, sexy vegetable stakes. Also known as French or round beans, they are long, thin, smooth and stringless. They can be eaten simply topped – although fastidious people might prefer also to tail them – as they have no fibrous strings. The fine or extra-fine grades represent skinny supermodel standards for cosmetic desirability, but thicker ‘bobby’ or ‘round’ beans, and more unusual types, such as long (snake) beans and wax beans, which are used in Asian cuisines, have every bit as much flavour.

Green beans go rapidly downhill with age as their attractive sweet, bright flavour gives way to a dull, even bitter, taste. Most of the imported green beans on sale in the UK are a good few days old by the time we buy them. Telltale signs of beans that are older than they should be are that they have a dull, matt finish and look limp or puckered. A really fresh green bean should be juicy, stiff and snap cleanly when bent. Some people believe in boiling them briefly so that they are still crunchy and squeak when you bite into them, but while beans should never be overcooked or soggy, they are better when just soft and cooked through.

Flatter, longer, rougher-skinned runner beans with their less predictable shape don’t have the same crunch as green beans, but bring a satiny texture to the table. They need their strings removed and are usually served not whole, but thinly sliced. Runner beans are more fibrous than green beans, but, on the plus side, they last much better than green beans, and there are those who prefer their more buttery taste. They are at their best when they are small and tender, so avoid those that look extra-long, coarse and knobbly as they may be a little woody within.

Things to do with green and runner beans

• Combine cooked pasta with cubes of boiled potatoes, halved cooked green beans and pesto in the Ligurian tradition.

• Raw and very thinly sliced green beans add crunch to Asian-style salads dressed with lively ingredients such as lime juice, fish sauce, fresh chilli and sesame oil.

• Green beans blanched in boiling water for three minutes, strained, refreshed in chilled water to keep the colour bright and cut into small batons, are a must in a proper salade Niçoise.

• Steam green beans and smoked haddock and top with poached egg.

• Add crunch to crunch by dressing blanched green beans with nut oil and adding crushed toasted hazelnuts or pecans.

• Runner beans turn soft and voluptuous if you stew them slowly in olive oil with tomatoes and garlic. Add oregano and/or a stick of cinnamon during cooking or throw in some chopped mint or dill at the end.

Are green and runner beans good for me?

Feel free to eat green and runner beans until they are coming out of your ears. They are an abundant source of the antioxidant vitamins C and beta-carotene, which help neutralize the damage done by harmful free radicals that can predispose the body to disease, and vitamin K, which is important for bone health. They also provide the body with soluble fibre, which slows down the rate at which sugar is released into the bloodstream, folate, which helps prevent birth defects, and beneficial minerals, most notably manganese and potassium. If you want to get the maximum nutrition from fresh green beans, avoid those that have been pre-prepared. Topped and tailed beans keep less well than the whole sort as the cutting weakens the structure of the beans and speeds up vitamin loss.

There is an ongoing problem with pesticides in green and runner beans. Government tests in recent years have detected relatively high levels of residues, almost always in imported beans. They have found samples of beans with multiple residues, residues of pesticides that are illegal in the UK, and residues that have been above the maximum permitted limit. The situation has been serious enough for the Food Standards Agency to issue rapid alerts to retailers and importers. If you want to reduce your exposure to pesticide residues, choose organic beans. Organic standards more or less outlaw the use of pesticides, and no residues have been found in recent years in organic beans.

How are green and runner beans grown?

Green and runner beans are grown in open fields. Most of those we eat come from Kenya, Zimbabwe or Morocco. Green and runner beans from Africa are transported using an elaborate chain that ensures that they are rapidly chilled after picking, then kept refrigerated at every stage in their journey to the store. Supermarkets and exporters insist that they can get African beans from field to plate within forty-eight hours, still really fresh, but the reality is that they do not emerge from this process radiating true vitality and freshness. UK-grown beans will almost certainly be fresher, especially if you get them from a farmers’ market or farm shop.

A tiny proportion of imported beans are now Fairtrade, and these are preferable because workers are better paid, growers receive a higher price for their production and more money goes back into the community to support community projects.

Are green and runner beans a green choice?

The importation of vegetables such as green and runner beans from far-flung countries is extremely controversial. As they are fragile and fresh, they must be transported by air, and air-freighting is particularly damaging to the environment because it uses up much more fuel than other sorts of transport, leaving a very heavy carbon footprint that is likely to accelerate the pace of climate change. Many of the countries that grow produce for the UK will be in the front line for feeling the effects of climate change because they are short of water and drought-prone, a situation that has already been worsened by global warming. Thirsty vegetables need lots of irrigation to grow, so this trade puts further pressure on already stretched water resources.

Some development groups argue that the environmental damage done by air-freight is offset by the fact that the air-freighted vegetable trade provides much needed income for people in producer countries. They say that if UK consumers stopped buying air-freighted produce, these countries would suffer. In their opinion it is unfair to deprive poorer countries of a lucrative trade when their overall carbon footprint is much lower than that of affluent countries.

Other development groups think that this trade is inherently precarious and gives no true security to producer countries, as retailers in wealthy countries can abandon their suppliers at the drop of a hat. They argue that poorer countries would be better to build their own ‘food security’, or self-sufficiency in food, by concentrating on growing food to feed their own people. There are also question marks over whether the financial benefits of the air-freight vegetable trade filter down to agricultural workers, or whether they are mainly creamed off by local elites and retailers in the UK. Vegetable workers, although happy to have a job at all, typically work long, hard hours for low pay.

On environmental grounds, it is hard to justify the air-freighting of vegetables, not least because it undermines local production. The never-ending supply of vegetables from other continents continues right through the summer months, even when the UK- and Europe-grown crop comes on stream, so it clearly competes with beans grown closer to home. While there may be a very small place for air-freighted imports for produce that can’t ever be grown in the UK, such as passion fruit or baby corn, the same cannot be said for those that can, such as green and runner beans.

Where and when should I buy green and runner beans?

UK-grown green and runner beans are in season from June until September, as are European imports. Imported beans from further afield are sold year round.

UNIFORMLY-PROPORTIONED CLONES

Green beans have a definite cachet, thanks perhaps to their time-honoured association with French cooking. Unlike sliced runner beans, which were more commonly used in domestic cooking, many British people first encountered the stringless green bean in the pages of post-war cookbooks, nestling in the classic salade Niçoise or as an accompaniment to the Gallic steak-frites.

In a few decades, green beans have gone from being a seasonal summer vegetable with irregular dimensions and curves to being ever available, uniformly proportioned clones that stack up as neatly as matchsticks. The standard supermarket specification for fine beans is that they must be straight and measure between ten and thirteen centimetres long and six to nine millimetres in diameter. What this means is that growers have to grade out 20 per cent or more of their crop, as retailers and wholesalers will otherwise reject it.

British chefs have been besotted by green beans and their aura of luxury and chic. In the 1980s and 1990s, bundles of imported green beans, blanched and tied with chives, became a common sight at functions and in aspiring restaurants. These days, imported green beans have become so over-used and so over-represented that they are increasingly being eclipsed on progressive restaurant menus by home-grown vegetables like celeriac and spring greens. UK-grown green and runner beans, on the other hand, are now seen as a special, seasonal treat worth seeking out.

Will green and runner beans break the bank?

At any time of year, there will always be a much cheaper, fresher and more interesting seasonal vegetable alternative to imported beans. Imported green and runner beans are always considerably more expensive than the seasonal UK- and Europe-grown equivalent. Fairtrade beans sell for a further premium, but they do represent a more ethical choice.

If you have any space at all to grow things, even a patio, or a large pot on a balcony, consider growing beans. They grow very easily, crop abundantly and look really pretty.