Simple Beans – A Lesson in Hospitality

In our home, as I think may be true in the homes of other Texans, pinto beans were a mainstay.  I can hardly remember a day that there was not a big pot of beans simmering amongst other delights on the kitchen stove either in my grandparent’s kitchen or in my mother’s.We could have afforded any sort of meat that my mother might have felt like preparing but we considered one of the best treats of all to be a supper of beans and cornbread.  We each had the pleasure of adding our favorite toppings and thereby “building” our plates up much like some people probably “built” hot fudge sundaes or banana splits.  We each preferred our own plate of beans a little differently.  My mother, who otherwise I never saw pick up a bottle of ketchup, dressed her beans with a sprinkling of cheese, some chopped onion, crushed Fritos, and ketchup.  After topping the beans and mashing them slightly, she would sometimes add a bit of her cornbread crumbled over the top.  We always had a green salad on the side and on the nights when we came home to this particular dinner we were so thrilled, that someone watching might have thought we were sitting down to steak and lobster.  Who knew that a dinner of beans could end up providing such a valuable lesson as was the case on one autumn night in 1968.

I remember this evening as if it were yesterday.  If I close my eyes for a moment I can even smell the beans simmering on the stove.  I can hear the sounds of the china cabinet opening and closing as my mother set the table for a meal that would teach me one of the most important lessons I would ever learn….what hospitality is really all about.

It was about 5 pm one evening when the phone rang.  We were in the habit of eating late or at least late by the standards of other people we knew.  Rarely did we sit down to dinner before 8 o’clock and it was not unusual to be having dinner at 9 pm in our home.  So when the call came in at around 5 o’clock there was ample time for my mother to regroup and make something else that would have been thought to be much more suitable for a company meal. But my mother lived out what she had no doubt learned from her mother, that you always treat your guests as family and your family as guests.

The call was from a gentleman from Kansas.  A wealthy business man my parents had not ever had the occasion to meet in person but whom they had spoken with over the phone a couple of times.  It seems he had come to Los Angeles on business and, at the last minute, a business dinner had been cancelled.  So he found himself in a city where he didn’t know anyone and thought he would take a chance and see if my parents might be free for dinner.   He offered to take them out to any place they might like to go.  Without even a moment’s hesitation, my mother insisted he come to our home to have dinner with us.  I heard the transaction from her end unfolding on the phone as I sat at the kitchen table doing some homework.  I could tell by her speech that the person she was speaking with was not someone she knew well, but in her usual warm and friendly way she was insisting that this person join us at our home for dinner at, “say about 7 pm”.  “Well”, I thought to myself, “she is going to have to spring into action to pull this off with only a couple of hours until whomever this is arrives.”  I closed my books and started putting things away convinced that when the phone receiver was placed back on the cradle, I would no doubt be called on to help her make whatever the replacement meal was going to be.

My mother hung up, then promptly called my father and told him that Mr. Gamble was in town and coming to dinner at 7 pm.  To my total surprise instead of heading to the refrigerator or the market, she went calmly to the dining room and began to pull out the china and good silver.  “Don’t you think we should get dinner going first?” I asked wondering why she was setting the table when we clearly needed to be working on something that was appropriate for a “company dinner”.  “I have dinner almost ready,” she said.  “You are going to serve him beans?!” I asked, incredulous that she would even consider offering such a meal to this wealthy man who was no doubt accustomed to elegant dinners in the finest restaurants.  She assured me that she would present them nicely, but that beans were what she had prepared for dinner and she wanted him to feel as at home as we would feel eating them.  She set the table with the good china and silver and linen napkins.  She put the silver chafing dish right in the center of the table as if she was going to offer up some elaborate French cuisine that she had slaved over all afternoon.  I was horrified, as only a teenager can be.  It was bad enough that she was actually going to serve a guest, and one we had never yet met, beans of all things, but now she was going to lead him to believe he was getting some gourmet fare.  This was beyond my comprehension that she would do such a thing. “What a cruel joke,” I thought to myself.  Yes, it was true that we loved beans and thought them to be a treat, but I was not so crazy as to be aware that served alone without meat they were considered to be what only poor families would eat.  This was not like my mother who always took such pains to make sure she had paid attention to every detail and who was a perfectionist at heart.

I had no excuse to miss dinner so it was with great embarrassment that I came out of my room to meet Mr. Gamble when he arrived and then proceeded, with the rest of my family, to the dining room table.  My father said a blessing over the food as he always did, though, it seemed like it was an extra long prayer that night.  Finally, “Amen.”  First my mother served the delicious looking salad on the side plates she had arranged so perfectly.  Then came that awful moment when she reached for the lid of the silver chafing dish to reveal the terrible secret that it was not filled with beef stroganoff or coq au vin but simple pinto beans!  I wanted to slip quietly under the table and disappear.  We lived in a nice upper- middle class neighborhood on the edge of Hollywood in a very charming and spacious home but my mother was about to portray us as “poor white trash” (a term and concept I had learned from seeing Gone With the Wind over and over again).  It was all I could do to sit there and endure this humiliation.  As if in slow motion, she lifted the lid of the chafing dish and at once the steam and aroma of beans poured out across the table.  There they were, plain, and small, and brown, and yes, unmistakably nothing more than ordinary pinto beans that had been masquerading under the lid of a silver chafing dish as something special.  I couldn’t make eye contact with either of my brothers, I just focused my gaze on my napkin hoping not to see our guest’s shock and disappointment and hoping he wouldn’t see my cheeks flushed with shame and embarrassment.

“Are those what I think they are?” he exclaimed.  Now that would seem to be a question you might expect that he was asking in possible confusion or even obvious disappointment, but even without looking up to see his expression, I could hear in his voice absolute delight.  Shocked, I looked on in disbelief as simultaneously he grinned from ear to ear and my mother heaped his plate with beans.  “I haven’t had this supper since I was a small boy when my grandmother used to make them for us.  I love this meal and it has been ages since I have had it!”  Not before or since have I had the pleasure of seeing a more satisfied individual at my mother’s table.  This very wealthy man had come from a very humble background and my mother had tapped into that and given him a long lost treasure in a simple plate of beans.  Exquisite and elegant meals he could have anywhere and anytime, but home cooked beans were hard to come by.  Much less someone who cared more about sharing whatever she had with great flair and love than with a need to impress him.  This is the essence of what hospitality is really all about and my mother knew that well.

She could have put away the beans and opted to “put on the dog” as it were and make some much more elegant meal in the hopes of impressing Mr. Gamble.  But my mother understood something which, up until then, I did not.  She knew that something simple prepared and served with love to our guest had far more value than something made to show off her culinary skills.  She could have focused her attention on a replacement meal that would have kept her in the kitchen.  She could have focused on entertaining Mr. Gamble in what most people (including me ) would have thought to be the appropriate manner.  Instead, she opted to share what she already had and spend time along with my father talking to this man who was alone and far from home and family.  She put the focus on him rather than on herself.  She set a beautiful table so he would know that he was a welcomed and honored guest, and at the same time served him a meal that let him know that sitting around our table he was like family.  This is truly the essence of real hospitality.  It is honest and genuine, it is gracious and generous, and always it is more concerned about the one being served than the one who is serving.  I learned one of the most valuable lessons I would take into adulthood that evening.  It was a lesson that has had great impact on me as a woman and a homemaker, as a mother and a hostess.  It is one I hope I have passed on to my girls.  My mother played out in front of me the difference between entertaining and showing hospitality.  She could have told me what she was up to as I squirmed and grimaced at her preparations, or what seemed to me like the lack of them.  Instead, she was wise enough to let me see this lesson unfold like the wings of a butterfly as it emerges from its cocoon.  She let me watch as it took flight and became all that God had intended it to be all along.

On the surface entertaining and hospitality look very much the same and so are often confused.  How often we hear someone on TV demonstrating how to make a particular meal or dessert comment, “This will really impress your guests.”  I don’t know about you, but I would far rather feel cared about in someone else’s home than to be entertained or impressed by their skills or expertise.  I don’t, as a rule, accept someone’s invitation because I am looking to fill a need to be entertained.  Nor do I invite people to my home so I can impress or entertain them with my skills.  I want to use the culinary skills I have acquired to communicate to my family and anyone else in my home that they are valued and worth the most precious of resources I can give….my time.  This is what hospitality is all about…this is what I learned around the dinner table on that evening long ago.  This was a lesson about true hospitality and southern comforts.

Pinto Beans

2 lbs dried pinto beans
2 cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
2 tablespoons dried oregano
1 tablespoon cumin
1/4 cup olive oil or bacon drippings
Water  to cover beans

Condiments
Grated cheese
Sour Cream
Chopped green onion
Corn chips
Olives
Chili (See tomorrow’s post)

Place dried beans in enough water to cover them.  Allow to soak all day or overnight.

(The soaking allows the beans to soften and to release some of the gas that is otherwise created during coating and then passed on to those who eat them.  Alternatively if you don’t have time to soak your beans for several hours you can bring them to a boil, turn off the heat and cover them and allow to sit for 1 hour.  Dump the water and rinse the beans and then proceed.  This method works well but isn’t quite as good as allowing them to soak for several hours.)

Dump the water the beans have soaked in and add fresh water to cover.  Add garlic, oregano, cumin, oil, pepper and salt.  Cook over a medium high flame.  You will need to add more water as the water cooks away.  Cook the beans for about 1 1/2- 2 hours or until soft.  Continue cooking until the water cooks down and becomes thickened by the starch in the beans.  (This liquid is referred to as pot liquer and is necessary to have if you decide to refry your beans.)  Taste and adjust seasoning, adding salt and pepper as needed.

Serve with condiments, corn bread and a fresh green salad with cilantro dressing (see Friday’s post this week for dressing recipe).

Enjoy and your guests will too!