The Sophisticate’s Favourite Vegetable

When I started writing recipes for newspapers I took a hard line with my readers on the subject of broad beans. Insouciant to their complaints and their protestations that they did not have the time to peel these legumes, the (relatively) young Stalinist in me told them to find the time. I take a more relaxed approach these days. Whether I put them with pasta, rice, on toast or as a vegetable or purée, I am always forced to the conclusion that beans go through stages and demand differing treatments, depending on their age. When very young, they can be eaten in their pods; as adolescents they can be eaten unpeeled, and later they can be peeled after cooking and sometimes they really must be peeled while still raw.