FREE: Badda Beans - badda boom!

The listing, Badda Beans - badda boom! has ended.

How can you not love a bean with a name like that!
Otherwise called “Il Fagiolo Badda di Polizzi,” this bicolored bean has been grown in the gardens around Polizzi Generosa in Siicily for at least two centuries. 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 apparently discovered badda beans while attending Terra Madre (A Slow Food International event) and smuggled some in when returning to California from Italy.

Growing: Badda beans grow on long vines -- for support try growing them with corn or sunflowers and let them twine upwards. 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 (2nd photo)...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!

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