There’s never been a more exciting time to be a chickpea. The United Nations dubbed 2016 the , and when Ban Ki Moon tells you to eat your beans, you listen.
Why the switch from world peace to peas? The answer to many of our global crises could be held in those little dried orbs: they’re sustainable, profitable for farmers, highly nutritious, an important source of protein and a critical part of the world’s food basket, especially for developing countries. They can fight fat, cancer, world hunger, poverty, and even (early) death, all while saving the planet.
But don’t let all that put you off: they’re much more delicious than their resume would have you believe, and we just happen to grow the world’s best.
International Year of Pulses
The International Year of Pulses is being celebrated worldwide, with a year’s worth of activities encouraging us to eat and grow more pulses. There’s a (eating pulses once a week in ten easy instalments), a global recipe database, and plenty more fun to be had.
Pulses – chickpeas, lentils, dried peas and beans – are the dried seeds of legume plants. The terms pulse and legume are sometimes used interchangeably, but legume is a much broader category of edible pods that includes all pulses, as well as fresh beans and peas, and surprising additions like peanuts and native wattleseed.
They’re an ancient food source: archaeological remains found in Turkey date chickpea and lentil production back to 7000-8000 BC. Pharaohs were buried with lentils, Esua sold his birthright for a bowlful of the stuff in the Old Testament, and Cicero in fact means chickpea – rumour had it that an ancestor with a nose like a chickpea earned him the moniker.
Raising pulses
Despite this, Australia didn’t have a pulse industry just 30 years ago. “The industry began from scratch in the 80s, we were flying by the seat of our pants,” says Peter Wilson, chairman of . A generation later and we’re now a key player in the global pulse trade, exporting 95 per cent of our crops. Walk through a bustling market in India, Egypt, or any part of the world and Peter can point out sackfuls of our pulses. “We produce really nice fava beans that the Middle East appreciates, they hydrate better and they split nicely. Our red lentils are in high demand in Sri Lanka. We provide a small red lentil in Bangladesh, and our pea, the kaspa dun pea, is big in South India,” he says. Our chickpeas are India’s favourite. “No one in the world produces as good quality desi chickpeas as ours.”
Desi are a smaller type of chickpea, commonly used in the Subcontinent and split to form chana dhal, or ground to make besan flour. We export more of these than anyone else in the world, and they’re grown mostly in Queensland and northern New South Wales. Different regions across Australia are specialising in different crops: in Western Australia it’s lupin, which is used as feedstock, South Australia and Victoria and known for their lentils, and southern New South Wales is increasingly focussing on fava beans.
“Farmers don’t grow pulses because they make them feel at one with the world: at the core, farmers grow pulses because they are profitable,” says Peter. They have a good yield per acre, they’re water efficient and require fewer steps to get the product from farm to table. But they have a second benefit: farmers plant pulses on rotation with other crops because they actually improve soil fertility and help minimise pests, diseases and weeds. It’s a highly sustainable crop that holds great profit potential for farmers around the world.
Get cooking
Pulses are a superfood, but don’t hold it against them. “They are natural whole foods packed with dietary fibre, plant protein, low GI, and rich in several nutrients… and to top it off they’re loaded with disease-fighting antioxidants,” says Chrissy Freer, nutritionist and author of (Murdoch Books, $29.99 hbk).
Now we’ve got that covered, you’re allowed to promptly forget it: because while they’re really good for you, they’re simply really good to eat.
Yes they stir up gas (more on that later), but also cultural pride. Fava beans, chana dal, kidney beans, black-eyed peas, red lentils, adkuzi beans and more are transformed into sensational national dishes around the world that speak of home. The Middle East is passionately divided on the topic of , how to make it, and which country owns it. You could map the Subcontinent by its variations on dhal, from rich and creamy in the north to the soupy sambars of the south, while rice and beans unites and divides the Americas. They’re a staple ingredient with a lot of culinary history behind them, all of which we’re fortunate enough to inherit in multicultural Australia.
Still our pulse consumption is comparatively low. Until recently they’d be more likely to invoke a groan than an argument in Australia, with a reputation for being frugal, boring, and a little too stodgy: they were the baked beans of school camps and wars, the mung beans of health food shops in the ‘70s.
But pulses are becoming sexy, and thoroughly modern. Yotam Ottolenghi (food writer, restaurateur of fame, and vegetarian heartthrob, for those living under a rock), is part of a growing trend of chefs using lentils, chickpeas, beans and peas in exciting ways: think warm vegetable salads with beautiful blue-green puy lentils, or rice dishes tossed with herbs and studded with chickpeas and currants.
If none of that sets your heart racing, how about a fudgy, rich chocolate brownie? Or perhaps a dense Middle Eastern syrup cake crowned with pistachios and packed with a secret ingredient*? “Legumes such as black beans, red kidney beans, cannellini or even chickpeas can be a great addition to baked goods,” says Chrissy, who includes recipes for cakes and biscuits in Superlegumes. “Their nutty and creamy flesh add body and texture, and can be used to replace some of the butter and flour.” Throw out your brownie recipe: her version will have you adding adzuki beans to the batter, and questioning everything you thought you knew about the world.
Chrissy Freer's double choc bean brownies. Source: Murdoch Books
Convinced yet? The first step is to load up that trolley with a stockpile of dried and canned pulses. They’re cheap and shelf stable, so they’re perfect for keeping in your pantry in case of apocalypse/empty fridge. Dried lentils and split peas cook quickly, making them ideal for weeknight dinners. Dried beans and chickpeas will take much longer. While pre-soaking helps to reduce cooking time by up to a quarter, and also helps with digestion, we realise ain’t nobody got time for that on a Tuesday night. Canned pulses are a convenient alternative, though they don’t tend to hold their shape as well. “Nutritionally speaking, there is little difference other than the added sodium to canned varieties,” says Chrissy. “Look for those with no or little added sodium, and always rinse thoroughly.” Another tip she suggests is cooking a large batch of dried pulses when you’ve got the time and freezing them in small portions. They defrost like a dream.
Beans, beans the musical fruit
One question remains: has the UN condemned us all to mass flatulence?
No, says Harold McGee, the Dr Karl of cooking, and author of food chemistry bible On Food and Cooking. He offers two solutions to break down the indigestible carbohydrates in legumes that cause excess gas: one is to soak the beans in boiling water, but you’ll throw out the nutrients and flavour with that soaking water. His preferred solution is simple slow-cooking. Other internet remedies abound: a popular one is the addition of kombu (dried seaweed) to the cooking water.
Or perhaps we all just embrace a world where everyone in the lift had or for dinner last night. It wouldn’t be such a bad place.
