FREE: Black Badda Beans! Rare Sicilian Heirloom!

The listing, Black Badda Beans! Rare Sicilian Heirloom! has ended.

How can you not love a bean with a name like that!
This is the twin of the caramel/white Baddas that I have listed previously - same prized Sicilian heirloom - but in black and white.

Otherwise called “Il Fagiolo Badda di Polizzi,” this bicolored bean has been grown in the gardens around Polizzi Generosa in Siicily for at least 200 years. Round and medium-small, the bean's name, badda, a term from the local dialect, refers to its ball-like shape.

I got these great beans from Tierra Vegetables - an organic farmstand/grower near here. Those nice folks discovered badda beans while attending Terra Madre (A Slow Food International event) and smuggled some in when returning to California from Italy.
Last year they only had the blond ones - now we have options!

Growing: These tall pole beans can be picked early for tasty green beans, or allowed to dry on the vine for soup beans. Badda beans vines are long -- for support try growing them with corn or sunflowers. In Sicily they are planted twice a year - in early June and in autumn. The harvesting of the "fasoli virdi" (fresh beans) begins about 60 days from seeding, while the beans destined for drying are harvested in October and November.

Cooking: Badda Beans are traditionally used for pasta e fagioli (3rd photo - but note that the dish of beans in the pic was made with the blond beans -- you'll have to use your imagination here).
According the write-up on these beans (which I found on a Sicilian website) "The bean is savory, with herbaceous notes and even brackish, slightly astringent, with hints of chestnut and almond. Once cooked it acquires a correct creaminess without flaking."...hmmm....all I know is these are really tasty beans! (Can't wait for my own crop to come in - 'cause I'm not into paying $7.50 a pound - yipes! - on a regular basis.)

This auction is for 20 beans - enough for a nice-sized patch - + an authentic recipe for pasta e fagioli (digital delivery)