A Taste For Time Travel

The ancient origins of our oldest cravings

Welcome back our most precious and extremely attractive supporters to another installment in our current series: Beans and Rice. Every Sunday we’re learning more about these 2 superfoods and cooking up a brand new recipe just for y’all. But first, let’s journey back in time to the beginnings of this forever fav of humankind.

Legumes are believed to be one of the earliest domesticated plants and were crucial in our development of larger, settled human communities. Ancient Egyptian civilizations were cultivating legumes as one of their major crops and carbonized seeds dating back to 8,000 BC have been found in Turkey. Archaeologists believe the domestication of bean crops began as early as 10,000 years ago in present-day Mexico and Peru. Peas have been cultivated in what is now Switzerland since 5000 B.C. and humans started farming soybeans in China between 2000 and 3000 BC Even the ancient Romans knew about how growing legumes lead to soil improvement, like we discussed last week. Basically, no matter where you’re from, humans have loved beans since the dawn of time.

Ancient Egyptians: known legume lovers

Our love of rice is just as old. In 2017, archaeologists discovered that humans have been eating and cultivating rice for over 10,000 years. To put that in perspective, the pyramids were built 4,5000 years ago. Yeah, wild stuff. Archaeologists discovered evidence of the cooking and harvesting of rice near China’s Yangtze River, at a site called Shangshan. The grains were eaten long ago- because humans are always hungry- and the plant stalks rotted away, but one tiny part of rice remains even thousands of years later: phytoliths, or hard, microscopic pieces of silica made by plant cells for self-defense. 

a fresh pot of rice is easily top 5 smells of all time

Rice leaves have fan-shaped phytoliths that don't burn, digest, or decompose. It’s specific patterns on these phytoliths that suggest people in Shangshan were not just gathering rice they found growing wild but cultivating and breeding them into the nice fat grains we have today. But scientists believe that rice wasn’t just domesticated there and then spread all over the world like citrus and so many other foods. It’s believed that there were at least 3 separate domestication events in northern and southern Asia that would account for many of our oldest strains of rice. So if you’re craving rice and beans now, it's likely that your ancestors were feeling the same way for thousands of years.

This week we have a recipe very loosely inspired by the classic dish of Chana Saag. It’s full of bright, fresh herbs, lots of spinach, and comes together in about as much time as it takes to make a pot of rice. So go ahead and give in to your ancestral appetite and make some beans and rice.

Green Garbanzo and Herb Stew Over Rice

Makes enough for 4-6 people

1 tablespoon coconut or olive oil

1 medium red onion, chopped

1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, skinned and minced (about 2 tablespoons)

1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped

5 cloves of garlic, chopped

4 packed cups of chopped fresh spinach

1 ½ cups chopped, loosely packed fresh cilantro

¾ cup chopped, loosely packed fresh green onions

½ cup chopped, loosely packed fresh basil

½ cup chopped, loosely packed fresh mint

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice, about 3 lemons

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice, about 2 limes

2 teaspoons agave or your favorite liquid sweetener

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup coconut milk

3 cups of cooked chickpeas (about 2 cans if you’re looking for a short cut)

1 cup chopped tomatoes

Cooked Basmati rice to serve, at least 4 cups

In a large braiser or fry pan, warm up the oil over a medium heat. Add the onions and sauté until they start to get a little color on them, about 5-7 minutes. Throw in the ginger, jalapeno, and garlic and let those tasty fuckers cook for about 1 minute. Now add the spinach with a pinch of salt and stir that all around until all the spinach starts to wilt, about 2-3 minutes. Turn off the heat to pan and give the contents a couple minutes to cool off. This would be a good time to make the pot of rice; just follow the directions on the bag. We like basmati rice here, but you do you.

Once the pan is a little cooled off, scrap the spinach mixture into your food processor.  Throw in the cilantro, green onions, basil, mint, citrus juices, agave, and salt and run that fucker until everything is all tiny and pureed. Think pesto and you’ll be good to go. Now back in the pan, warm up the coconut milk over a medium high heat and add the chickpeas. Stir this all around for a few minutes for that the chickpeas get kinda warm then toss in the spinach herb mixture and the tomatoes. You just want everything warm but don’t want the tomatoes mushy so this whole process should take less than 5 minutes. Taste and add more salt or whatever you think it needs. Then turn off the heat and get ready to grub.

Serve over warm rice with some extra herbs and fresh tomatoes on top.

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Thanks so much for your support. We’re loving all the comments and emails you’ve been sending. Feel free to reach out whenever you want. Supporters like you always have our full attention. We’ll back here next week with a brand new recipe and some other silly shit just for y’all.

Michelle and Matt