The Bean Story - (I'm almost afraid to tell you all that this story is COMPLETELY true. I've retold this story a thousand times and copies of this story are everywhere. So enjoy it, and promise me you won't think differently of me after your done!) - Personal - http://maxpages.com/prufrockcafe/NEW_The_Bean_Story

(I'm almost afraid to tell you all that this story is COMPLETELY true. I've retold this story a thousand times and copies of this story are everywhere. So enjoy it, and promise me you won't think differently of me after your done!)

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It wasn't long after Eric and I married when I decided to make a routine of going to the farmers market each week to buy fresh vegetables. Several of the older, more sophisticated women in my church intrigued me with their stories of "going to the market," of cooking beans, of washing, sorting, and cooking vegetables, of shelling peas on the veranda, and adding a touch of cinnamon to their bean casseroles.

This sounded enchanting to me and a life that I longed for, so it was on that very day I decided to set out on a trip to the farmers market for my "goods" as I had heard them called.

I walked several of the aisles making my purchases when I happened upon a large bin of the most beautiful things I'd ever seen! There in the bin was an assortment of beautiful multicolor beans in yellows, blacks, greens, whites, browns, reds . . . "Thirteen Bean Mix" the sign read.

I reached into the bin with both hands and ran my fingers down through them . . . aaah, yes. I had to have some of these. At that very moment I knew that cooking those beans were my destiny. I looked up at the old woman sitting there in the rocker and asked, "Uuuh . . . how do ya' cook these?"

She reached down in her lap and unwrapped a piece of paper, took an object from it, inserted it into her mouth, clicked it into place and grinned. It was her teeth. I grinned as the woman smiled back, handing me the piece of paper her teeth had been in.

I hesitated a moment and then carefully took the sheet of paper from her. "You'll have tu' copy that recipe down honey, that's the only copy I got and I ain't about tu' part with it." Glancing over the recipe, I grinned again and told her that I'd take a pound of the beans.

As she filled a homemade parchment paper sack with the beans, I copied down the teeth-holding recipe. I looked up only once to ask her what a ham hock was . . . she laughed and told me that it was "the hock of a ham, honey" and went back to folding and stapling the bag until it safely held my treasure.

"Doller' forty-nine", she said, "An at'll be fifty cents for the recipe." My thoughts went eleven ways, "She's charging me for copying down the recipe?" But I went ahead and handed her the two "dollers" anyway. She thanked me, took her teeth back out, folded em' back up in the recipe and went back to her rocking. I stood there for a moment trying to drink this moment in . . . the moment I became "one of the women"! I was about to be worldly and cook thirteen bean soup. To make things even more exciting, I could show off my new-found skill when I hosted the bible study at my house the next day at noon!

I imagined all the ladies standing around my pot, inhaling the wonderful scents of my beautiful soup and commenting on how smart I was to be making such a wonderful dish. They would all want the recipe and I would give it to them and not charge them even a penny! Joy Joy Joy!

I dashed home making only one stop for a free ham hock. I couldn't exactly understand why it was free until I unwrapped it . . . there was very little ham and I assumed what was left was "hock". Trying to imagine our pastors wife eating a hock . . . well, the picture just wouldn't come. But anyway, I tossed it into salty water to let it sit like the hock-man said . . . "overnight in your refrigerator to make the fat fall off, lady".

I ran into the kitchen and opened my little bag of beans . . . I was now supposed to wash, sort, and then soak them overnight. So, out came my black and white speckled metal bowl that I'd found at a tag sale for .75 cents. I felt just like one of "the women" as I picked out the ugly ones and ran my fingers through all those lovely beans. I drained them in a strainer and then began the sorting.

Looking around the kitchen for enough bowls to sort the beans in, I decided on the eight cereal bowls, three tupperware bowls, and two plastic tumblers. I took my bowl of beans and sat in the middle of the den floor. I spread the thirteen little containers around me on newspaper and began to sort my beans. It was an extremely slow and tedious process and several times I wondered what the purpose was if I were just going to put them all back in the same pot again anyway. But I plugged on, assuming that this was the way "the women" did it . . . besides, it felt important sorting beans like this.

The process became rather hairy when I came upon several "different" beans and had to make a trip to the kitchen for more tumblers. Now I had fifteen different containers around me and bean sorting wasn't as glamorous as I'd thought. My fingers began to ache after an hour of sorting and I wasn't even making a dent in my bowl! But still, it felt good sitting there doing my sorting even though it made little sense to me why I had to do it.

Six o'clock came and Eric came through the back door. He walked by my bean sorting and asked what I was doing. I told him and when he asked me why I had to sort the beans that way, the response came to me as if God Himself had told me the answer. "Eric," I smartly explained, "You put the big beans in the pot first, then the middle sized ones, on down to the small ones . . . that way they all get done at the same time."

I stopped for a moment to enjoy the pride, good sense and logic of my answer. It sounded so worldly and like an answer one of the women at church would give. I beamed with pride as Eric patted me on my head and remarked how cute I looked sitting there sorting beans that way.

By six thirty my back was aching and my fingers were cramping but all my beans were sorted and in twenty-two different little containers. I sat back and smiled . . . now to soak them. I wondered if I should soak them in the containers they were in, or put them in bowls. Quickly deciding on the containers (since I didn't have enough bowls anyway) I ran water in them and sat them on the counter. "Let soak overnight" the directions said.

I could hardly wait till morning! When it finally came I dashed straight for the kitchen and marveled at my beans . . . they were sitting there so fat and happy. Firing up the pot, I tossed in the hock, the onions and tomatoes and then looked around my kitchen for the container of the largest beans. It was a toss-up between the large limas and the plump little garbanzos. I decided on the garbanzos. Secondly went the limas and thirdly went the four strange beans almost as large as the limas that had been assigned to a coffee cup.

As I waited for those to begin cooking, I lined the rest of the containers in a single file line in order from the biggest to smallest beans. The line stretched from the pot across the counter and then curled back around several times until it ended at the sink.

I glanced at the clock and wondered how I was ever going to be able to work on my soup and host the bible study at the same time. So I made a list of my beans and noted the times when I supposed I should dump them into the pot. By noon, I would have seventeen more beans to add. "It'll look impressive for me to excuse myself to add the beans," I thought happily.

Eleven forty-five came and I set out the sandwiches and tea. By noon the first knocks came and at ten minutes after we were about to start our study. Mariell Williams led our study that day. Ironically it was about pride and asking for help when we need it. I joyfully excused myself two or three times to add beans to my pot and then proudly sat back down. I could hardly wait till someone commented on my soup! The house was beginning to smell wonderful "and the scents," I thought, "are curling around their noses at this very moment . . . they'll see that I'm worldly and that I can make soup!"

When Mariell ended her prayer, she commented on "the luscious smell coming from my kitchen." I grinned broadly, flipped my hand, wrinkled my nose and said (as if it were nothing), "Oh, it's nothing . . . I'm just making a pot of Thirteen Bean Soup for dinner tonight."

Several of them began to talk and two or three got up and wandered into my kitchen as I proudly followed. "What's all this," Mrs. Jordanson asked me as she noticed my containers of beans numbered nine through twenty-two so organized and worldly sitting there on the counter just waiting for the pot.

"Oh, that's my beans. I numbered them after I sorted them so I could keep up with when to put them in the pot!" I said happily, "See, here's my list." And I handed her the little piece of paper. "And you know what?" I asked them in my best Martha Stewart voice, "It's time to add the great northerns!" And with that I prissed over to the yellow tupperware bowl of great northerns and dumped them into the pot.

Now I expected to hear "ooh's and aaahh's" . . . what I heard were snorts and giggles. "Edith, Mariell . . . yall come in here and looket' how Lynn makes her beans!" Inez Jordanson hollered into the living room. Now Inez Jordanson is a quiet sort, and when she hollers you can bet that half the county just might come running.

In an instant my kitchen was filled with sixteen giggling women who were whooping and howling as they passed around my list and pointed to my neatly numbered containers eleven through twenty-two.

Suddenly I was beginning to feel as ridiculous as I looked. Catching bits and pieces of the conversation, I realized that sorting only meant to pick out the ugly ones, something I had done the night before. Finally, I could stand it no longer and began to howl with the rest of em'. My name went down in history that day and my recipe was flying around the church along with my interpretation of it! Everybody was making MY Thirteen Bean Soup and was thinking of me as they did it. I had made a name for myself . . . and however it got there, I now considered myself one of the "worldly women."

A few days later while Mom was visiting, I told her all about my bean-sorting adventure as I began mixing up a cake . . . another one of those "worldly" things to do. As I read the directions, Mom and I laughed about the beans. I told her that from now on "if there's ever any question about something, I'll just ask instead of assume . . . like the good book says."

My mother just smiled and shook her head as she watched me insert my hand slowly into the cake batter and begin to confidently mix. Batter slowly climbed up to my elbow but we continued to talk and laugh about the beans. "Mix by hand 100 strokes," the recipe stated, and that was exactly what I did.

Cowboy/Annie

"People Exercise an unconscious selection in being influenced." T.S. Eliot

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Page Updated Sun Apr 2, 2000 10:58am EDT