Changing tastes

It was with some anxiety that I started yesterday's meal on Monday. It was with even more trepidation that I sat down to eat it. What, might you ask, did she make? Butter beans. I was confident enough about the grilled Cumberland & black pudding sausages & chips they were to accompany. They were sure to be okay. The worry was the butter beans. I've never cooked them before.

There is a reason for this. I still shudder at the memory of butter beans from school lunches. The Fox had similar memories. Unlike most foods the school dinner ladies massacred, butter beans was not something my mother ever did at home. Custard, gravy, mashed potatoes, rice & tapioca puds I knew didn't have to come with lumps. They didn't at home. Equally I knew cabbage didn't have to come with purple fluff mixed in, or hard boiled eggs with a nasty tasting grey-green edge to the yolks, or even sprouts soggy. Liver didn't have to taste of leather with rubbery tubes sticking out. No. my Mum redeemed all these foods in my eyes.

But butter beans have remained an anathema. I'm not sure what put me off most, the tough papery skins or the gritty flavourless inside. But I decided the time had come to put this childhood aversion to one side & have another go. They may just be better than I feared. And just maybe, cooked in the right way they would be edible, even delicious. Little B, our recently deceased friend, used to regularly buy them, tinned, as a bit of a treat for him & Mrs B when she went to dine with him. And I shuddered every time he told us. Then this summer, PD came back from Crete enthusing about a dish of butter beans in a tomato sauce he'd had on his holiday. I'd found a Greek recipe for just such I thing so I thought I'd try it yesterday.

We were somewhat astounded by just how much water the dried beans took up. Overnight, while they soaked, we had to fill them up with yet more water several times. I nervously tasted them when I'd cooked them to check they were soft. I still wasn't very keen. Then I made the tomato & onion sauce & cooked them further. I'm surprised to say we both really rather enjoyed them. The handful of fresh mint in the mix really lifted them. They're still not a veg we would want to often but once in a while they would make a pleasant change.

This is definitely not a meal I would have had a few years ago. Even sausages I wouldn't eat. I always loved the flavour, just couldn't keep them down. Even now I would never eat them out unless I knew the source. I still have difficulty with some varieties, even from our regular source. As for butter beans - forget it.