Old-fashioned Bean Soup

My addition to this traditional family recipe is the inclusion of turmeric, which deepens the flavor of all legumes. My mother added orange peel, when available, to most dishes with tomatoes, inspired by the days she had spent in Sparta in the southern Peloponnese, an area filled with orange and olive groves. She later started to add mustard to her fassoláda, claiming that it made the beans easier to digest. I have my doubts about this claim, but mustard certainly enhances the soup’s