Grow Your Own Magazine

supersprout · #1 (**permalink**) 23-01-2007, 12:51 PM

I want to grow anasazi beans next year, but have failed to find a source in the UK, or (so far) anyone who has enough spare to swop.
I loves my beans

Any ideas?

pigletwillie · #2 (**permalink**) 23-01-2007, 12:56 PM

SS

try here

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Barry-Farm-...ns_W0QQfsubZ11

They sell them in packets for eating but may well be suitable for sowing. Is there anything special about them?

supersprout · #3 (**permalink**) 23-01-2007, 01:15 PM

Clever piglet, thank you!
EEK @ postage from the US, that's why I'm trying to find UK sources

Nutritious, delicious, and (fairly) flatulence-free

And with a romantic history

From the Web:

The anasazi bean is named after the extinct Anasazi or the Pueblo Indians. This new, yet ancient bean has the most amazing history behind it. One story has it that in the 1950s, archeologists in one of the Anasazi digs found a sealed, clay pot with a few of these beans in it. (Carbon dating determined them to be 1,500 years old.) Some of them sprouted and the modern anasazi beans all come from those few beans. As the Anasazi Indians left their homes in the late 1200s AD, however, this would have made those beans at a minimum 750 years old! (That is, if you ignore the carbon dating.)

It's generally understood by seed viability specialists today that 50 years is about as long as a seed can remain viable which puts this story into question. There is another story that the first settlers who moved into this area found these beans growing wild around the Pueblo ruins then locally cultivated them. Years later, those same archeologists found the same kind of beans in that clay pot dating back to Anasazi times.

I called up the company that patented and grows the anasazi bean. The sales representative told me the story is indeed true, some of those ancient seeds did sprout, but she added that most likely, the vast majority of the seeds they used to build up the crop probably came from local gardeners in the area. A California accountant, Ernis Waller learned of the bean and with his agronomist partner, Bruce Riddell's efforts, this bean has been brought to the public. The anasazi was first commercially sold around 1983. The anasazi bean is now just gaining a foot-hold in the market.

The anasazi is a white bean with a maroon patern and is a cousin to the pinto bean. They have a flavorful, sweet taste and are easier to digest and therefore cause less gas than the other beans. Interestingly, the anasazi bean only has 25% of the gas producing properties of the pinto which falls roughly in the middle of the gas producing scale. Like the other beans, they rehydrate to three times their size but cook in less time than similar beans their size. Anasazi beans can be substituted for pinto or red kidney beans in your favorite dishes.

Not just another bean, the anasazi is flavorful, adaptable, and full of nutrition. And eating them gives one a sense of being in touch with the ancient Indians who gave them to us.

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