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| Photo: copyright Sunripe |
I'm delighted to welcome a guest blogger to the Pinch: my dear friend
Ravinder Bhogal. Along with Jay Rayner and Anna Richardson, Ravinder is presenting a new six-part show,
Food, on Channel 4. If you watched the first episode on Wednesday you would have seen the intrepid Rav follow the Kenya green bean from source to supermarket. Kenyan green beans are often held aloft as a symbol of unacceptable food miles but the truth, as Rav found out, is a lot more complex. Here's her exclusive account of her trip to Kenya and a rather scrummy recipe for green bean, cashew nut and coconut salad...
Over to Rav:
Words like “sustainability” “carbon footprint” and “food miles” have been thrown around by the press like cheap fertiliser - germinating confusion, guilt and food neuroses. Facing a media roasting have been Kenyan green beans, demonised due to the 4000 miles they travel via airfreight to get to our supermarkets. The trouble is, it’s not that simple. The distance food is transported is not necessarily an accurate measure of its environmental impact.
Where the food miles issue is concerned, there is a danger that by focusing on the easy target of transportation, we miss the bigger picture. Yes it’s true that the beans are being flown over, but what is less known is that they are coming over as cargo on passenger planes which would take off regardless. So a jolly trek to the Masai Mara and a packet of beans in our trollies amounts to the same thing.
Further still, we need to examine the overall carbon emissions of a product rather than just the transport issue. British produce is not magically more environmentally friendly because it is grown locally - most green beans in Kenya are grown by smallholders who farm by hand in the old fashioned way compared to industrial British farming that produces a far larger dent in the ozone.
What struck me most however is that by not buying these beans, we are simply denying Kenyans a livelihood. The bean industry is big business – bigger than tourism, and giving trade rather than aid assures these people of a sustainable income. I saw first hand the magic of these beans when I ate dinner at the home of Elizabeth, a bean worker who explained her job had given her and her two young children a lift out of poverty. Before the green bean dollar came to her village, the children were too poor to go to school and close to malnutrition. Now, the funds from the industry have helped build a local school and provide a healthy diet.
When I go shopping I know what I’ll put in my basket – the question is what will you put in yours?
Green Bean, Cashew Nut and Coconut Salad
This South Indian inspired salad is more-ishly good on its own, or makes a happy plate partner to fish. Serve at room temperature or cold – the flavours develop over time, so I prefer to make it in advance.
250g green beans, trimmed and cut into three
a generous slug of groundnut oil
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
a whole dried red chilli
a pinch of asafoetida
2 tablespoons of split Bengal gram
15 fresh curry leaves
50g cashew nuts
a large handful of desiccated coconut
Salt to taste
the juice of one small lime
Place the beans in a pan, and cover with water from a freshly boiled kettle. Simmer for one minute and then drain and refresh in icy cold water. The beans should still be toothsome.
Toast the cashews in a hot dry pan and set aside. Toast the coconut till pale golden too – keep your eye on it as it does go from golden to charred rather quickly.
Heat the oil in a wok or pan and once it’s smoking, throw in Bengal gram. As soon as it begins to colour, sprinkle in the mustard seeds. Once they begin to sputter, add the asafoetida, dried red chilli and curry leaves. Stir in the green beans and cashews, season to taste, pour in 30mls of water, cover and cook for 4 -5 minutes.
Remove from the heat, scatter over the coconut and squeeze over the lime juice.
Ravinder is co-presenting
Food, a six-part series on Channel 4.
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