Les Haricots Des Vendangeurs

My son Simon picked grapes for the harvest in Beaujolais one year and came back brown as a walnut, with fabulous stories of gargantuan breakfasts in the morning and equally large suppers at the end of the day. Kidney beans, and plenty of them, were standard fare, laced with quantities of garlic, a slab of bacon, and red wine, the cheapest ingredient of all in that abundant wine country.