I love a good bean: tossed with vinaigrette in a salad, spooned over pasta, served on a plate with rice and corn. The bean is a powerful little food, all the more for its shapeshifting capacities. Many people can appreciate that these legumes are cheap and healthy, but they still fall short of widespread adoration or even respect. Yet, over the decades, Atlantic writers have turned to the bean's revolutionary potential again and again. The humble bean, small, unglamorous, packed with protein, has been a source of inspiration for those seeking to remake the food system, fight climate change, and add some better flavors into American homes. In a 1975 article loftily titled 'A Bean to Feed the World'' the historian Richard Rhodes made the case for centering the soybean in the American diet. 'We continue to sing of amber waves of grain, not dusty pods of beans,' he bemoans in the opening line. Noting that the soybean was, at the time, the No. 1 cash crop in the country, Rhodes argues...
learn more
