Beans Yfryed
“‘You want eat?’ Mord asked, glowering. He had a plate of boiled beans in one thick, stub-fingered hand. Tyrion Lannister was starved, but he refused to let this brute see him cringe. ‘A leg of lamb would be pleasant,’ he said, from the heap of soiled straw in the corner of his cell. ‘Perhaps a dish of peas and onions, some fresh baked bread with butter, and a flagon of mulled wine to wash it down. Or beer, if that’s easier. I try not to be overly particular.'” -A Game of Thrones
Modern Boiled Beans
Thoughts:
Yes, I know. It’s been MONTHS since my last recipes, and now I show up with… beans? I’ve felt my own absence from the blogs keenly, and was delighted to get back into the kitchen this week. With a working oven, and a fully charged camera, I feel suddenly like I can make ALL of the things; As I type this, I have two new recipes in the oven. In the meantime…
The medieval beans are appropriately bland, and a good fit for the scene from the book. The onion flavor is there, and hugely amped up because the beans absorbed the oniony goodness during the boiling process. The garlic, while wonderful, isn’t quite enough to combat the almost overpowering onion. I soaked my beans overnight, but wait as I might, they never “bersten”, so I boiled them. The boiling wasn’t in the historical recipe, but because that’s what they’re supposed to be in the book, I felt this was a good compromise. I sprinkled a little salt over top; the poudre douce was interesting, but didn’t do the dish any favors. I had hoped to make a kind of bean mash out of the ingredients, then sort of fry them like patties, but the mixture was too wet to hold together. Still, with some binder ingredients, that might be a neat way to try it in the future.
The modern beans are universally much easier to like. Boiling them in soda makes them sweet, since they soak up all the flavor and sugars of the rootbeer. That sweetness contrasts really nicely with the smoky, saltiness of the bacon. The parsley is just there for show, but adds little pops of green color to the bowl. It’s an earthy, dense side dish, ideal alongside a big piece of meat. I’d probably like a little more sauce with this version- not quite like Boston baked beans, but it’s a tad dry as is. Next time, I’d add some crushed tomatoes, a little molasses, and stir until I was happy with it.
Overall, I found the medieval recipe more authentic to the scene in the book, but the modern version definitely tastier.
Medieval Boiled (and Fried!) Beans
Benes yfryed. Take benes and seeþ hem almost til þey bersten. Take and wryng out þe water clene. Do þerto oynouns ysode and ymynced, and garlec þerwith; frye hem in oile oþer in grece, & do þereto powdour douce, & serue it forth. –The Form of Curye, 14th century Cook’s note: I used a type of locally grown dry bean for this, but can’t for the life of me remember what variety it was. I’d wager that pretty much any kind of dry bean would work for this recipe. I love using roasted garlic, but regular garlic is fine. INGREDIENTS:
- 1 1/2 cups dry beans
- 1/2 onion, peeled and minced
- 3 cloves roasted garlic (see below)
- olive oil
- Powder douce or salt
Soak the beans overnight, or at least 8 hours, until they look like they are starting to burst. Boil the beans and the minced onion in a medium saucepot. Add garlic, then fry them in oil or grease. Sprinkle with a little poudre douce, and serve! To roast Garlic: Preheat oven to 400F. Slice the tops off an entire head of garlic, and drizzle with olive oil. Wrap in tin foil and roast for around 35 minutes, or until the garlic starts to feel soft. Remove and allow to cool. You should be able to squeeze the cloves out of their papery shell, or fish them out with a fork. Nibble on a few, savor them over toast, and store the rest in the fridge, covered with olive oil. You’re welcome. :)
Modern Boiled Beans
- 3 cups root beer (approximately 20 oz.)
- 1 1/2 cups dry white beans
- 3 cups water, plus more as needed
- 3+ strips bacon, fried and crumbled/chopped
- 2 Tbs. chopped parsley
Soak beans overnight in water or 8 hours, until they look softer and are starting to burst open. Rinse them and put in a pot along with the rootbeer and water. Rinse well and put in a stock pot together with rootbeer and water. Boil for 1 hour, then turn down to a simmer for another 30 minutes. If at any point during this process, it seems like there’s not enough liquid, add more water. After the time is up, the beans are soft, and the level of water is mostly depleted, turn down the temperature further and add the bacon and parsley. Stir to combine, then remove from heat and serve hot.
Roast garlic spread on a nice chuck of bread along with some Cambazola cheese may not be medieval but it is yummy. Cambazola is a German cheese like a cross between Camembert and Gorgonzola.
[sigh] I hope I don’t get flamed too badly for this comment. I always seem to get flamed when I post a comment on this blog.
You didn’t really follow the medieval recipe very closely, so you can’t complain that they weren’t very good. Once I got past the middle english spelling, I realized this is how my great grandmother used to make beans; ist’s very similar to fried rice, in that you fry them in oil with the onions and garlic before adding water and covering the pot to simmer. It comes out almost exactly like refried beans.
I actually don’t think that either you or Chelsea followed the recipe very closely.
What I get from it is, that you soak the beans until they’re soft. Wring out the water (so I guess it would sort of turn into a bean mash, like you wanted Chelsea), then saute that with the oil and the onions and the garlic.
By the way, I got the book for Christmas and I love it!
The way to soak beans to get them bursting, i.e. peeling skins is to soak them in very hot water. Use salt or baking soda in the soaking and you will get rid of a lot of the gas that beans cause some people. Pour off the water and start with fresh water for boiling.
Nice to see you back! Living in the South, we grew up with pinto beans cooked with salt pork or ham hocks. That this dish starts with white beans and root beer would cause my grandmother and aunts to cringe.These beans sound interesting, I think I’ll give them a try – I just won’t tell any of the aunts!
I will give this one a try, but I get my beans to burst by soaking them 24-48 hours — refreshing the water every few hours. Also lessens the gas produced by those who eat them.
Hmm, judging by previous comments i think that this recipe is going to be a ton of fun to work with. It seems to me that it’s one of those recipes that if a dozen different people makes a batch, you’ll end up with a dozen different results. I cannot wait to give it a try! :)
It would be such fun if a few folks made it, and then compared results. I’m not happy with my versions, and would love to improve them. There are only so many beans a single girl can eat, though, even in the name of recipe perfection… ;)
Yup. Soak them until they almost burst, drain them (or wring them out, I guess), then fry them in oil or grease with onions, garlic, and salt. They come out almost exactly like refired beans, except firmer, not paste-like. The only difference between these and fried rice is that you don’t presoak the rice (obviously) but rather add it to the pan after the rice has been fried. So, manybe I do know what I’m talking about. Thanks for the flame, though.
The boiling is actually in the recipe, so your technique is correct. Looking at older handwriting, what looks like a p is frequently a th, which makes it seethe rather than seep. Seethe means boil or simmer. So really, you’re spot on and it looks terrific!
What variety of root beer did you use? Do you think ginger beer would work as well?
could someone please explain, what is powder douce?
A generic seasoning blend from the medieval period. It’s comparable to us saying “barbeque rubbed pork loin” or “Italian spiced chicken” or “blackened bass”. You could probably look up some recipes on line if you want to give it a try. I, for one, do not like the way they heavily spiced meat back then. Then again, I don’t really need to hide the taste of spoilage in the food I cook, either.
that helps a lot, thank you
Super late and I don’t expect a quick response, but the “medieval people used spices to disguise spoiled meat” is a VERY old myth that refuses to die. :/ It started with a Victorian chemist called Jack Drummond who clearly didn’t know how to cook anything and probably didn’t think to ask any female relatives if they did. Then he misinterpreted several key medieval terms, but even considering that, he held very strongly to “Medieval folks were much dumber and stupider than us.”
Meat and spices were mainly eaten by the wealthy, so peasants wouldn’t be able to afford either on a regular basis, and the nobles certainly wouldn’t waste expensive saffron and pepper on bad food, since they could afford fresh meat in the first place.
Drummond even contradicted himself by citing NUMEROUS medieval laws against serving/selling spoiled meat to customers, or even slaughtering unhealthy animals (which we still do today, because the animal’s most-likely poor condition aside, NO ONE wants to catch a disease from a bull that had pneumonia before slaughtering).
Check out this article clearly documenting how popular the misinformation is: “Medieval people weren’t stupid, and they were every bit as discriminating as their modern descendants.” http://medievalcookery.com/notes/drummond.pdf
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As for the strange tastes, apparently medieval folks enjoyed the contrasting flavors of sweet/sour or spicy/sweet to balance each other out, and with half my family being immigrants, I immediately thought of several cuisines from Asia (not hard to see why, since many spices came from Asia).
Another relic of medieval flavor profiles is American Southern barbecuing–they LOVE sweet-and-spicy or spicy-and-sour mixes for their meat and beans. When it’s done badly, it’s definitely weird–but when it’s done right, it’s a perfect blend of “one flavor is the main profile, but then the other nudges you or sneaks in as an aftertaste.”
I’m thinking you were supposed to start with a base measurement for the beans’ spices, and then gradually add more to taste–medieval folks were notorious for not measuring very closely, especially since skilled cooks could wing a recipe based on a main ingredient, like the contestants in Iron Chef.
Even today, there’s a lot of people with “their grandmother’s recipes” that tell you to “get a couple handfuls/mugs/small-bowls of flour and mix them with water/milk until it’s a stiffer dough,” as opposed to “mix two cups of flour and two cups of water.”
Sometimes your commentary on whether stuff “tastes good” makes me laugh, because you’re clearly not focusing on the passage’s context. GRR Martin is known to use food as a subset of setting the tone, and Tyrion’s in jail.
The beans aren’t SUPPOSED to taste superb, so I’m guessing they just gave him the medieval equivalent of prison-mush. That would mean “hey if there’s no more leftovers from yesterday, just boil some beans in the morning and give it to the prisoners two or three times a day.”