Culinary Fool

1. That I got off at 3:00 pm – early enough to still enjoy the summer evenings
2. That if there weren’t enough beans for all 3 shifts, day shift had priority so I was more likely to work (which when you’re earning college money is very important).  At one point I worked 58 days without a day off.

I also was lucky in that my second year there I made friends with the main foreman who happened to be a graduate of the same college I was attending, OSU.  Denny was pretty excited that someone from his college was there and earning money for school and so I soon found myself on one of the better assignments after he encouraged me to apply. 

In those days, although this was not stated anywhere, jobs were sort of divided between males and females.  Most of the female jobs were on the belts – sorting through the beans that passed by to remove those that had some fault.  My first year I was on the "hot belts" – the beans passing by were in their final approach to the can.  They had been cut, steamed and should have been flaw free.  And mostly they were; our job was to pick out the occasional stem or rust spotted piece that passed by.  And I’m sure the steam did wonders for my complexion! :-)  Someday I’ll tell you about the days when the beans were not as flawless as they should have been – but those are separate stories… Somehow I ended up on a crew of old-timers; women in their 60s who had been doing this work for more years than I had existed, at that point.  It was a way for them to earn a little cash in the summer and they enjoyed the camaraderie.  I liked it. 

But when I met Denny he encouraged me to apply for an open position on one of the "clean-up" crews, normally considered a male job, due to some of the lifting requirements.  Well, I was pretty strong and since those jobs paid more, I figured I’d go for it.  And I got the job!  Surprise!  Well, to me anyway.  I moved to a really cool job!

I was outside the cannery building on a metal-grid catwalk about 15 feet off the ground. Beans passed by me on their way into the cannery after being dumped by the big trucks arriving from the farms into the blowers.  The blowers were these huge cages with amazingly strong fans that spun around moving the beans forward.  As they moved forward the blowers would separate the beans from any lightweight debris that was mixed in with them – like leaves or stems.  Then the beans would pass by me as they made their way into the actual cannery.  

My job was threefold.  First, I had to regulate the flow of the beans into the cannery – if they came through too fast or too heavy they would get piled up in some areas where there were cross bars over the belts.  The main way we regulated the flow was with an irrigator (sort of a curved pitchfork) or by jumping up onto the belts, sitting on one of the cross bars and pushing the flow back with our legs.  It was actually pretty fun – kind of a game.  If things got really bad we could shut off the belt to smooth everything out (not encouraged as you’d cause disruptions in the flow) or, if it was just out of control, we’d gesture wildly to the guys running the blowers to "CUT! CUT!" by running our hands in a horizontal motion across our necks.  Yes, this was long before the days of cell phones or little walkie-talkies or any of those nice little communication devices we now take for granted! :-)

The second part of my job was to monitor the waste coming out of the cannery and being loaded into trucks that would haul it away. (These people were SO smart!  The cannery paid them to haul the waste away and they then took it out and sold it to hog farmers!  What a deal – they got paid coming and going!)  Now when I say waste I mean the kind of stuff you’d put in a compost pile:  leaves, stems, bad beans, odd vegetation that had been caught in the load.  The belt that the waste dumped out onto and that then climbed up to dump it’s load into the trucks was prone to mechanical failure – perhaps a stick would slide off, get stuck and completely stop the belt.  When that happened I had to stop the belt (electrically) climb down into the pit, and clear whatever the obstruction was, then get out and restart the belt.  The challenge was to get it all done without having to stop all the processes inside the cannery – just another game.

My third role was on the "clean up" crew.  At lunch breaks the machinery would shut down and while everyone one else had their break, the clean up crew would use high-powered hoses with heavily chlorinated water to clean everything.  If there happened to be a day without beans (the cannery staff off for the day) the cleanup crew came in and did a really thorough cleaning of all the equipment using brushes and sheer strength to scrub everything down. 

On a good day, I spent a lot of time talking to my co-catwalk worker or the guys hauling the waste.  On a bad day I was fighting beans to keep them orderly or trying to clear something from the waste belt, not getting it done fast enough and having a bunch of water overflow and soak me!  But, even on a bad day, I liked the work. 

So I’ve rambled on for quite some time but the point of this is that sometimes over-exposure to something makes you sort of dread it.  But that isn’t the case with me and my green beans – and I didn’t even tell you about my years spent picking them, similar to my strawberry story!   :-) 

To get to the point (oh, what fun is that??) over the last several weeks I’ve been eating green beans like crazy!  Haricort vertes, Blue Lakes, whatever they have at the market, I buy.  Sometimes I steam them and have them along with a real meal but one of my favorite things to do is to make the beans the entire meal!

There are slight variations but this is normally what I do: 

Cut one piece of thick bacon into 1/2" pieces; sauté over medium heat until about 50% cooked.  Add 1/2 onion cut into 1/4" slices and a few pieces of chili pepper, if desired.  Continue sautéing until the onion is tender.  Add 3/4 to 1 pound fresh green beans, tips removed and one or two cloves of minced garlic.  Cover and stir occasionally for about 8 minutes, just until green beans are tender but still have bite.  Turn off the heat and add a handful of cherry tomatoes that have been slightly crushed or partially sliced at the top.  (This releases some of the juice and also makes them easier to eat.)  Cover and let sit for about 1 minute – just until the tomatoes area warmed through. 

Remove to a serving plate, if you plan to share them,  or place on your dinner plate, pour a glass of wine, dive in and enjoy!

As you can see this "recipe" is open to all kinds of creative additions or options.  For instance, add some mushrooms along with the beans; top with toasted almonds or walnuts; maybe mix in a little steamed corn-off-the-cob;  whatever you can imagine, whatever appeals to you, you can do.  Don’t you love being in control like that? :-)