Fruit, vegetables and pulses

Pulsano beans

Pulsano beans: carmine red, and the white 'lady's bean' with a lipstick mark

Along the coast of Pulsano, in the province of Taranto, some twenty elderly farmers have grown two related beans for more than a century: one solid carmine red, the other pale with a small red spot by the hilum that looks like a trace of lipstick. The Slow Food Presidium aims to pass them on to new growers and bring them back into local kitchens.

• The white bean bears a small carmine mark beside the hilum, like the print of painted lips
• Kidney-shaped seeds about 15 mm long; the red, less productive, is now the rarer of the two
• Two sowings a year, the old way: a spring one for seed, the main one in August

How to enjoy it. Soak them overnight and simmer gently with onion, celery, tomato, sage and rosemary until creamy, then finish with raw extra virgin olive oil. On this coast they are also paired with grilled octopus.

Production areas

Apulia

Season

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