How will you be celebrating new year? I’ll be reaching for
the lentils in the hope that they’ll bring me good luck and prosperity in the
new year. Well that’s what the Italians believe. Lentils are thought to resemble
coins so are eaten as part of new year celebration meals in Italy.
I’ve enjoyed a long-standing love affair with pulses (in
simple terms dried beans, peas & lentils). I just can’t get enough of them.
I think my love of them goes back to when I was a child. I didn’t like meat but
thankfully my Mum was happy to accommodate her fussy daughter’s vegetarian
needs! Our shelves were already full of cook books but new ones appeared by
authors such as Rose Elliot, Sarah Brown & David Canter (Cranks) and so she
set about making some fantastic vegetarian food. No one else I knew ate like we
did. We loved shopping at Rainbow Wholefoods (a Norwich institution) for dried
beans such as black-eyed, mung and aduki. I loved the smell of the shop – a
combination of herbs, spices, fresh bread, spiced vegetable-filled pastries,
sticky date oat crumbles and more. The shop still smells the same now and it
brings back such happy memories.
I’m not a vegetarian or vegan. I love fish and I succumbed
to meat when I was 30 but I only eat it occasionally and choose high welfare,
locally reared meat. I suppose I’m a flexitarian. Some days I only eat plant-based
foods, not on purpose, it just works out that way. Dairy products don’t really
agree with me but I love veg, grains, beans, lentils and peas so that’s what
forms the majority of my diet. When cooking meat I often add beans to make the
dish go further and provide extra nutrition.
So, getting back to pulses. I’ve been reading a book called “Pulses
– Nutritious Seeds For A Sustainable Future”. Pulses really are incredible –
they’re naturally packed with low-fat protein and fibre, they’re rich in
nutrients, vitamins and minerals. They are excellent antioxidants that counteract
our natural ageing processes (great news!) and we digest them slowly because
they are high in complex carbohydrates and fibre. This gives us a feeling of
satiety but also helps to stabilise blood sugar and insulin levels by reducing
spikes after mealtimes. Pulses make an ideal choice for people with diabetes or
those trying to manage their weight. On top of that they’re cheap and great for
the planet. They require little water to grow and naturally improve the
fertility of the soil that they’re grown in.
We use British-grown pulses in our bace products after
discovering a company called Hodmedod’s who source and supply pulses from
British farms. I love that Hodmedod’s offer little known pulses which aren’t
readily available in supermarkets. We use red haricot beans, carlin peas, split
fava beans and green split peas from their fantastic range. If you haven’t
heard of carlin peas before they’re like chick peas but smaller, nuttier in
flavour and I think are superior in taste and texture.
January for me is a time for change, reinvention and learning. In January I’ve set myself a challenge of eating pulses every day. I’ll be exploring different cultures and how people cook with them, I’ll be searching out new pulses and cooking them up with new found flavour combinations. Follow me on Instagram to see daily updates and witness my love affair with pulses take on new heights! I can’t wait to get started…
If you want to find out more about my bace products then take a look at our online shop.