Fagioli

 

The spoken name, fagiloi, is pronounced fa-ZHOH-lee. Let's say it together now ... it's just one word sliding out of your best Italiano mouth ... FaZHOHlee! According to the epicurious.com dictionary ... fagioli are generally large white kidney beans. 

When Nancy and I walked through a beautiful part Tuscany ... on well worn paths through woods and farm fields ... we sometimes found ourselves in a two or three building village. We were at times fortunate to encounter a small restaurant, such as one in a villager's house ... where a number of people would pull a chair up to a very long table for a very long lunch.

It this setting you might expect the first thing to be served to be, "ah nica plat of fagioli" ... white beans with finely chopped onions, parsley, with a lovely drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. This would be, they said, "ze fagioli". The fagioli is often prepared with a different set of ingredients. As long as there are white beans ... sometimes they were small white Cannellini beans. So it is perfectly okay for me to create my own bean dish and consider it to be "ze fagioli!"

I lika the large white kidney beans. I found a nica jar of the big white kidney beans at the Halgo European Deli and Groceries, which is located at 4520 S. Alston in Durham, North Carolina (just across the street from the nica new Durham branch library). There is where I found a beautiful jar of Polish large white kidney beans. The minute I saw this jar of beans I said to myself ... "Self ... I'ma going to fix me some ah nica fagioli!" I bought the jar and also a nice long piece of Polish sausage after the proprietress provided a sample.  Then I went home to make my fagioli. It is the dish pictured in this posting. Let me tell you, these beans are so good I started eating them without adornment, just as they come from the jar! Then after consuming enough, I set about to create my own inspired fagioli using these ah nica Polish beans, a fresha heirloom tomato, some fresha Italian parsley, and of course, ze drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. And I served this fagioli on one of Grandma Stewart's beautiful plates. This became the appetizer for our evening dinner. How could you not love this dish of happy, happy food! Ees good for you too!

Ingredients:

• White beans

• Onion, chopped fine

• Parsley, chopped fine

• Tomato, chopped (Use Heirloom tomatoes if they are available)

• Extra virgin olive oil, a drizzle over the salad

Instructions:

Bring all of the ingredients together to make an artful and delicious salad. Use a light drizzling of olive oil for dressing.

Nancy and I were in Italy for 22 days in 1988. While there, I took this picture on our 8-day walking tour of Tuscany where we ate lotsa ze fagioli!

 

Comments

[Allotment2kitchen.blogspot.com]

A lovely light salad.

Those white beans are called butter beans in the U.K. I like chickpeas, but butter beans will always be a second choice, I love how they melt in the mouth.

Such a beautiful photograph of Tuscany captured by yourself. Thank you for sharing.

[Ross Pipes]

Thank you so much for your comments. I love Tuscany.