Tales of a Recovering Beanaphobe
"Beanaphobe" is slang or a humorous term for someone who has an intense dislike, aversion, or irrational dread of beans.
The Never-ending Rows
GRRRReen Beans!
I say it with a “GRRR” because that’s how I felt as a kid when I had to pick them for my mother.
It was 1979, and she was very pregnant with my sister, Lisa. Bending over was difficult, and the August heat was wearing on her. Her vegetable garden was massive, with rows already a formidable 45 feet long, but for an eight-year-old kid, it felt like 1,000.
Soooo. Many. Beans.
(Warning: Extreme use of exaggeration may be included in the following text…to be fair, this is how this eight-year-old kid felt.)
The rows of green beans in my mother’s garden stood towering over me, branches buckling under the weight of millions of the slender pods. I was to spend hours under the brutal conditions of a Wisconsin summer picking one of my most hated foods.
To make matters worse, I was repulsed by the way the green beans and their leaves stuck to my little fingers like a microfiber cloth with an extreme case of static cling straight out of a dryer. It made me shudder, as much as one does, when confronted with nails on a chalkboard...
Luckily, that summer, I made it out alive.
French Cut Green Beans
However…a bit of good came out of my extreme disdain for this revoltingly clingy vegetable (technically a fruit, but I digress).
My mother loved French-cut green beans and froze them for our winter meals. What I now suspect was a clever way to act as a “babysitter” on those hot summer days, she gave my sister Janice and me the task of running them through her hand-cranked bean cutter, one by one.
Summer Gardening Gear
Present-day Bonnie: I still loathe picking grrrrean beans.
Not only are there about a bazillion of them, but now the leaves make me itch. So in the middle of the oppressive heat and humidity of summer, when most sane people in Door County are lounging in their swimwear on a beach, I am fully clothed top to bottom while I pick grrrreen beans with the leaves and blossoms sticking to my clothing as I unapologetically sweat.
The Recovering Beanaphobe
At this point, you are most likely asking, “Why, oh why, does she grow them?”
First: Doug loves them, and this recovering Beanaphobe refuses to deny him one of life’s great veggie pleasures.
Second: This recovering Beanaphobe decided that it was finally time to make this horrid vegetable to her liking.
I now prepare green beans in a multitude of ways. I might wok-fry them with garlic, sea salt, and white pepper. Or to satisfy that fried food craving, I dip the beans in a batter, deep fry them, and serve with a tangy, spicy aioli. And for one of my favorites, I simply pickle them.
So in conclusion, will I ever fully accept green beans? As long as they insist on sticking to my clothing and making me itch, I will not. But as far as my tastebuds? I am happy to report that I am fully recovered!