Greed. I like the word. I have a thing for words that really ought to be used negatively but aren’t — to re-use them, look inside them. Or the other way around. Charm becomes a negative attribute: to be charming is to be a liar and a scoundrel.
My mother used to call me greedy, call my siblings greedy, my father too. His whole family was greedy — my whole paternal line slicked with greed, running through the DNA, a precious vein. My paternal great grandparents were grocers and pig farmers, petty criminals too, and they dealt in greed. The greed of a good customer for a good sausage. But this monicker was affectionate. “Oh, you greedy boys!” My brother and I fighting for the last piece of chicken/beef/cheese/pie/trifle.
Greed spurs me and sits on my shoulders. When people ask why I cook/ am interested in cooking, I tell them it’s because I’m greedy. I am so greedy that when I first moved out and had very little money I would take the bus to Ridley Road Market so I could spend £20 on food for the week, and would take the bus home with so many blue plastic bags, each representing £1, that I’d have deep indents in my palms for days after.
Greed suggests a want for more than one needs, for more than one deserves. Of course! The ungreedy eater would drink Huel, the ungreedy looker would stare at their shoes, the ungreedy walker would always take the quickest route, or better, the tube. A lack of greed suggests a stasis, suggests a sort of self-satisfaction suggestive of the moribund, and why live if you’re not trying to squeeze something from everything? The mouthful when you’re full, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth glass after dinner when you’re pissed, these represent a wish for more, for more experience, more thought, more pleasure, more love.
Greed is most often given to the rich. They are greedy, tax-dodging, rent-increasing, pheasant shooting bastards. I don’t think they deserve greed: we do. It’s a boring sort of greed, the greed for money, for more money than you can use simply to exert power over others. It's hollow and unfeeling, a world away from the greed for a roast chicken shared between lovers in bed on a Sunday or a Monday or a Thursday. Down with that greed, up with greed for the every day, for excellent pasta and excellent soup and excellent salad and excellent toast with thick butter and flakes of salt.
My mother recently sent me a picture of my maternal great grandfather — a funny little man. She said his chief interests were pubs, the horses and women. That he ate dripping on toast for breakfast as a treat and — being from Norfolk — a great deal of crab. He wasn’t, I believe, a particularly clever or honourable man, but he was charming and he was greedy.
Yesterday, I made the best beans
Best Beans
3 tablespoons of olive oil
Small handful of dry rosemary spears
Small white onion, diced
Large clove of garlic, crushed and diced
Big tomato, diced
2 generous ladles of white beans (or a jar/tin)
1 ladle of their liquor (or what’s in the jar/tin)
Sauté onion, garlic and rosemary spears in oil on a low heat in a heavy pan — so they are just cooking, essentially bathing in the oil. Stir on occasion.
After about ten minutes when the onion is translucent and the garlic golden, add the tomato. Stir, cook for another ten minutes on the same very low heat until the tomato has almost melted away.
Now stir in the beans and their liquor, increase the heat for thirty or so seconds to warm them through, then reduce again. Leave to simmer very low for fifteen or so minutes.
I had the beans with a roasted swede mash, which in retrospect was a touch too sweet. I think their magic would be most apparent on bread or rice, any subtle carb, with some lemony chard.
The essence of this dish is slowness and low heat, but it’d be nothing without good beans. I tend to cook my own beans, using the memory of Laila Gohar’s recipe, which was a revelation during the first lockdown. It is simple:
Cooking beans a la Gohar a la Jago
Soak desired beans overnight in 6x their volume of water. When ready to cook pour a bit more water in if so there is at least a couple of inches above them. Add an onion, halved, a carrot, halved, parsely, sage, mint and rosemary tied together, a quarter of a lemon, a generous pinch of salt and an equally generous glug of olive oil. It’s not necessary to use lots of fresh herbs — generally, I use only the stalks of soft herbs I’ve used elsewhere, tied together with string, but a sprig of rosemary or a bay leaf never go amiss. Really, you can add anything you think will flavour the beans — fennel ends and fronds, fennel seeds too, peppercorns, anything that would be happy in a stock. Beans are dynamic — what I add changes every time -- and they are forgiving. The liquor from beans is wonderful on its own, eaten with the beans and perhaps some leafy green, but can also serve as a wonderful vegetable stock. Interestingly, chickpeas cooked with lemon, onion, garlic, and rosemary make the best substitute for chicken stock I know. Interesting because chick/en/peas.
If you do not have the time or inclination to cook beans, Best Beans will benefit from getting an expensive jar. I used to be pretty sceptical about expensive beans but this was an error, especially when eaten in a salad or cooked only a little. If you’re not convinced, get tinned beans in salted water, these will be the sort sold in any Turkish or South Asian shop, and are infinitely preferable to the unsalted beans sold by supermarkets.