Bean people gravitate to Rancho Gordo, and now there's a cookbook

"Be prepared: heirloom beans love-bomb you at first sight."

That's a line from the forward to Steve Sando and Julie Newberry's gorgeous new cookbook devoted to nature's perfect food — beans. 

Sando is the founder and owner of Rancho Gordo. He is a purveyor of what are likely the most exquisite beans in America. If you've ever seen his precious wares in person or pined over them online, you know it's true. Heirloom beans, with all their seductive speckles and vibrant colors will love-bomb you at first sight. And now, you have more ideas for how to cook them thanks to The Bean Book: 100 Recipes for Cooking with All Kinds of Beans from the Rancho Gordo Kitchen.

Evan Kleiman: Steve, we've talked before on the show about how you started Rancho Gordo. At the age of 40, you were ready to give up, work in a big box store and start a garden. But fortunately for us, that garden took off. Soon enough, Thomas Keller was buying your beans and you were selling them mail order to cooks all over the country. There's a story in your introduction that I hadn't heard about the time you went to an agricultural expo at a university that was proudly showing off their breeding program. What did you find when you got there?

Steve Sando: It was very impressive. There were acres and acres of fields of beans. The host was showing [us how] this one acre was super round, this one was super white, this one was bred in order to be harvested easily. There were probably about 30 or 40 people there. I really innocently asked, "How does it affect the flavor when you do these breeding techniques?" And they were like deer in headlights. They, in five years of a trial, had never cooked one pot. These are the people who, in many ways, are in charge of our food. I think that was very telling.

Evan Kleiman: That's shocking.

Steve Sando: It was. I'll tell you an aside. I offered to teach them how to cook beans, and I did. I got there, and there was a box of donuts and a big Diet Coke liter, and when I started to put olive oil in the beans, they said, "Ooh, we're trying to cut back on oil." I'm thinking, "Look at your snack table." But anyway, the people who make food decisions, it's really why I live in my own world with other bean people.

Evan Kleiman: It's a good world. By contrast, Rancho Gordo is all about flavor. Do us a favor and describe some of your beans so listeners who aren't familiar can get a sense of the breadth and diversity that you offer. Maybe pick three kinds.

Steve Sando: The one I started with as a home gardener, and I really started out because the tomatoes that I was taking to the farmers markets weren't ripening, and I thought, well, let's do beans, because those will keep. I found one called Rio Zape, and it's purple.

Evan Kleiman: My favorite bean.

"The Bean Book: 100 Recipes for Cooking with All Kinds of Beans from the Rancho Gordo Kitchen" puts all varieties of legumes to use. Photo courtesy of Ten Speed Press.

Steve Sando: Good. I'm happy to hear that. It's purple with black spots. And as you cook it, it has this inky, delicious bean broth or pot liquor. But then as you eat it, it's like the pintos I love but there's a hint of chocolate and a hint of coffee, and that's what got me going. It still, to this day, is one of my favorites, and is really one of the best refried beans as well. 

Then big, beautiful, creamy white beans, like Royal Corona, it's a different family of beans, or runner beans. They tend to be meatier but also creamier. I often look at recipes for potatoes and think, "Can I sub Royal Corona for this?" And nine times out of 10 I can. 

Then there's little ones with our California heritage, like King City Pinks or Santa Maria Pinquitos, that both look like small pink beans but one is sort of earthy and herbally, that would be the pinquitos. Then the King City Pinks have this weird creaminess but they hold their shape so they're perfect for things like salads. 

Those are just three off the top of my head but we now grow and sell 25 varieties domestically and about 10 that we're importing. And there's still more to be loved. So we're still working.

Evan Kleiman: Julia, with so many types of beans on offer, do you tweak how you cook beans every single time you cook them? Or do you default to a master recipe then tweak once the beans are cooked?

Julia Newberry: We do have a master recipe that we use. We cook beans every day here at the Rancho Gordo store, and we cook them in a slow cooker. We have a combination of aromatics and spices that we use for our master bean recipe. I usually default to that. It includes garlic, onion, and our Oregano Indio, which is a really unique flavored type of oregano. It's one that we all love so much and have become so accustomed to, a pot of beans without it tastes almost weird to me, at this point. If we're using the beans in a dish that's more Italian-focused or European, we will usually leave out the Oregano Indio and maybe put in a bay leaf or something like that.

Evan Kleiman: What about salt? Every time you bring it up online, there's such an uproar. Do you salt beans at the beginning of cooking, at the end of cooking?

Julia Newberry: We really have stuck to Steve's original recipe, which is to salt when the beans just start to soften. You can sort of smell them. You can tell when they're becoming cooked beans as opposed to dried beans. That's the point when we usually add salt.

Evan Kleiman: And, of course, chilies are a natural pairing for beans. If you're lucky enough to be a member of the Rancho Gordo Bean Club, which I am not, I have to say, you often get a bottle of chili powder in your quarterly bean shipment. Is there a recipe that you think highlights the harmony of beans and chilies?

Steve Sando: With the Bean Club, you get something extra. Often it is chilies but sometimes it's oregano, sometimes it's something related to Rancho Gordo or bean cookery. Beans and chilies are... one of the nicest things are dried ancho chilies. You reconstitute them with vinegar and a little piloncillo or brown sugar then stuff them with whole beans and cheese. It's really one of the more unusual, delicious things with beans and chilies.

Evan Kleiman: I was not expecting where that was going. 

Steve Sando: No, it's not an obvious one but it's a delicious one, isn't it? 

Evan Kleiman: Ancho chilies, describe what they look like. 

Steve Sando: They're dried poblanos. Poblanos, erroneously in California, are often called pasilla in grocery stores. I don't know why that is but it's really irritating. A poblano is a big, triangle-shaped inky chili that you usually use for chili rellenos. Relleno means stuffed and often it's [stuffed with] cheese or picadillo. But why not stuff it with beans and cheese? When they're dried, they're denser and a little bit more raisiny. You reconstitute them, split them open, take out the seeds (I think that's called placenta that the seeds are stuck to) then stuff that with a mixture of beans and cheese. You can puree the beans or you can leave them whole, and it's delicious.

Evan Kleiman: That sounds so good. Do you serve it with any kind of sauce?

Steve Sando: I wouldn't. Just on its own, it's delicious. If you wanted to be indulgent, you could egg it and deep-fry it but I think that's gilding the lily.

Evan Kleiman: I have to ask you about chili with an "I." I imagine you've had some spirited debates over what constitutes "chili." Where do you draw the line and which ingredients are essential for you? You guys are allowed to fight.

Steve Sando: Only with Texans. No one else seems to care. We can have a discussion but if you're from Texas...

Julia Newberry: We have had some tomato debates, for sure.

Steve Sando: Yeah, that's my issue. I think there are a lot of people who call a vegetarian chili "chili," and basically it's a vegetable stew with maybe a chili in it. That isn't what chili is. 

If chili is based on chili con carne, there are no tomatoes. Tomato adds a sweetness and it's sort of cloying whereas you really want chili. So in the book, we have my favorite recipe that we came up with — Chili Sin Carne. It's a vegetarian chili that I think an open-minded Texan would enjoy. Their argument is always "beans don't belong in chili." But to me, it's like, no, tomatoes don't belong in chili. They wouldn't do tomatoes either. 

Steve Sando calls his Chili Sin Carne, "a vegetarian chili that I think an open-minded Texan would enjoy." Photo by Ed Anderson.

Evan Kleiman: Julia, what kind of beans do you like to see in chili?

Julia Newberry: I love our Domingo Rojo in chili. It's a small red bean. It's what we suggest as a substitute for a kidney bean but it's so much more... they stay really firm but they still have this creaminess to them. The broth is great to add to the chili, as well. That's my top pick. 

We have played around too with our Ayocote beans. We have a purple and a black. They're larger beans and pretty firm with thick skins and those are great in chili, as well.

Evan Kleiman: You're mentioning all of my favorite beans. 

Steve Sando: I don't think that's so hard, is it?

Evan Kleiman: Those are my top three, I think — Rio Zape, Rojo Domingo and the Ayocote. I haven't fallen out of love with them yet.

Steve Sando: Can I tell you a story about Ayocote? I'll be really quick. When we started bringing them in from Mexico, you would never see them in a restaurant there. Mostly indigenous people ate them, and you'd see them in the farmers markets. There really was no commercial market for them even in Mexico let alone here. My partners down there, the mother of one, said they're just awful, they're hard to digest, and they're really for poor people. Then we started getting new crop ones, and she had to admit, they're fabulous. But when we brought them in, nobody was doing it. So it's exciting seeing them not mainstream but certainly become more popular with people who love beans.

Gardening was a second career for Rancho Gordo founder, Steve Sando. When chef Thomas Keller caught wind of his beans, he was in business. Photo by Kim Sevreau.

Evan Kleiman: Anybody who listens to the show will know that I'm obsessed with old fashioned veggie burgers. I really love a hippie burger made with beans and topped with sprouts. It seems like black beans are the go-to but is there another bean variety that we should reach for when making our own veggie patties?

Julia Newberry: We have a black bean burger in this book. It's actually a pretty famous burger in Napa at a restaurant called Norman Rose Tavern. They've had it on their menu for years and years, and it's delicious. I think any firm bean would work, like our Domingo Rojo or the Rio Zape or maybe Santa Maria Pinquito would work as a substitute for a black bean but it'd be fun to experiment with it.

Evan Kleiman: I am fascinated with subcultures of all kinds. Is there something that connects bean people aside from their love of beans? Are bean people a type? You certainly have a demographic. How many people are members of the Bean Club?

Steve Sando: 26,000. Julia, do you know what the waitlist is now?

Julia Newberry: I think we're at about 15,000 with the waitlist.

Steve Sando: I'll tell you, when people come into the store, I used to say it was sort of an older woman who would walk in and was like, "Oh, finally something for me," because society doesn't always gear to her. But I'll say there's a lot of people who aren't necessarily mainstream and who love cooking and love having friends at the table and that's their joy, and we're just not geared to that. 

You see people arguing about what kind of fast food is best sort of ironically and winking, but these people are eating that stuff all the time. I think people who cook are also people who cook beans. I think that, for me, would be what we have in common. We love the idea of entertaining, cooking, and helping other people feel good about stuff.

Evan Kleiman: And patience. Because you have to be patient to cook beans.

Steve Sando: Yes. I think we love that it's our little secret, that it seems really hard that I turned this awful rock into something creamy and delicious. But you wink to other bean people, it really wasn't that hard, if you know how. It was no sacrifice. 

Julia Newberry: It feels like a fun secret that we all are in on together.

Evan Kleiman: I want to thank both of you, Steve and Julia. It's been such a pleasure and the book is really beautiful. Thank you so much. 

Steve Sando: Thank you for everything. 

Evan Kleiman: Too bad it doesn't come with a pound of beans.

Steve Sando: I know a guy who can help you with that. Just give me a call.