First harvest: borlotti beans

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I’ve just been rambling through my overgrown garden for something -- anything -- for lunch and found that my first borlotti beans are ready to harvest. Those are the marbled beans used to make pasta fagioli, that hearty soup of beans and pasta that’s beloved all over northern Italy.

Usually I just use dried ones from the market, but this year I planted an Italian heirloom variety called lingua di fuoco -- tongue of fire. I guess it’s the red marbling on the pods, and slightly on the beans, that gives them that name. Whatever you call them, they are real beauties.

I can see right now I’m never going to have enough to dry for soups, so I’m slipping the lovely beans fresh into a summer succotash with white corn, or adding them to a composed salad. Next year, if I plant more, I can be thoroughly profligate with my lingua di fuoco.

These came from the same source as my purple pole beans, Trionfo Violetto: Seeds from Italy at growitalian.com.

--S. Irene Virbila