Online Exhi-BEAN-Tion – Post-event blog
Sunday 05 December saw Tales from Coventry Tables take over the Shopfront Theatre in Coventry City Centre for a hybrid food tasting event for December’s Feast as part of the University of Warwick’s Resonate Festival.
The Online Exhi-Bean-Tion set out to share ideas about our favourite pulse, the delicious and wonderfully versatile common bean and featured new ingredients from Professor Eric Holub’s work at the University of Warwick Crop Centre: a large blonde bean named Godiva and a traditional white navy bean named Capulet. Professor Holub has been pioneering the commercial growing of common dry beans with a local farmer at the university farm on the Warwick Innovation campus near Wellesbourne.
Surprising fact: none of the navy beans in a tin of British baked beans are currently grown by UK farmers. To give a commercially viable yield, navy beans usually need summer heat and a lot of sunlight to grow well – not something for which the UK is renowned! However, Godiva and Capulet have been purposefully developed at the University using conventional plant breeding methods to create new varieties that can thrive and produce high quality seeds in a British summer.
Versatility is the best news about common dry beans. And, as the Feast event demonstrated with Godiva and Capulet, there is more to healthier eating than tinned beans on toast.
Mystery Taster Pack
Beans taster pack inner (credit Ellie McCann)
Almost 80 guests booked for the Online Exhi-BEAN-Tion with many choosing to collect a mystery Taster Pack to eat-a-long with the Zoom show. Inside the box were four taster pots of vegan dishes cooked by local chefs featuring locally grown beans, as well as a package of the two-bean mixture grown by a local farmer on the University farm.
Guests were treated to: a simple ‘Almost Naked’ bean dish that allowed flavour of the featured ingredient to sing; a fusion Ugandan / Gujarati shaak (or curry); Libyan beans with couscous; and a sweet bean bread with bean butter. Two wonderful films, made by local artists Emilie Lauren Jones and Luisa Freitas, were also shown featuring local people talking about beans.
But don’t worry if you couldn’t attend – it’s all online on the Tales from Coventry Tables Youtube channel: the guests chatting, the two films, and even the Q&A session after! See the films below. And the recipes featured are downloadable, so you could cook at home and eat along to the film!
Recipes
Almost Naked Beans, by Professor Eric Holub
Bean Shaak, by Daksha Piparia
Libyan Beans with Cous Cous, by Safa Aswaisi
Sweet Zuccini & Raisin Bread with Sweet Bean Butter, by Edlynn Zakers
Roasted Beans Two Ways: Sweet & Savoury, by Edlynn Zakers
Read more about the background to the event here and about Professor Holub’s work on common beans in our food system here.
Follow Tales from Coventry Tables on Twitter, or find them on Facebook, as well as catch them on Youtube.
Watch the event here
Production credits
Compere: Anastasia Chokuwamba
Guests: Professor Eric Holub; Daksha Piparia; Safa Aswaisi; Edlynn Zakers
Films made by Emilie Lauren Jones & Luisa Freitas, featuring: Shabana; Olugbemi; Slavica; Rachael and Keith.
Technical Production Manager: Jack Denton
With thanks to the University of Warwick’s own: Prof Rosemary Collier; Dr Martine J. Barons; Sue Gibson; James Brown; Beth Russell; and Coventry’s finest: Theatre Absolute; Ludic Rooms; Cogs of Coventry Market.
Produced by Tales from Coventry Tables
Commissioned by University of Warwick Food Global Research Priority as part of the Resonate Festival.