Recent entries:
“I love Mexican food them chicken case of ideas be so good fr” (3/25)
“Me: Is it gonna be hot or cold today? Texas: Yeah” (3/23)
“Texas weather and Texas women, pretty much the same thing” (3/23)
“Me: Is it going to be hot or cold today? Texas: Yes” (3/23)
“Will I be hot or cold today? Texas: Yes” (3/23)
More new entries...

Entry from December 02, 2006
Pinto Bean

The pinto bean (usually from New Mexico) is included in many Tex-Mex recipes. I found the first citation now used in the Oxford English Dictionary.
 
   
About.com: Southern U.S. Cuisine
Texas-Style Beans
From Diana Rattray
 
INGREDIENTS:
2 cups pinto beans, dry
1/4 pound salt pork, diced
1 cup chopped onion
1 clove garlic, minced
2 teaspoons salt
dash pepper
2 cans tomatoes, (16 oz each)
3/4 cup diced green pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
6 drops bottled hot pepper sauce
PREPARATION:
In 2-quart bean pot or casserole, cover beans with water; soak overnight. Drain. Cover with fresh water; add salt pork, onion, and garlic to the beans. Simmer, covered, for 2 hours. Add salt, pepper, tomatoes, green pepper, sugar, and hot pepper sauce.
Cover and simmer 3 hours more. Serve beans with cornbread squares or hot cooked rice.
Makes 8 to 10 servings.
 
Tex-Mex Recipes
El Paso Border Beans Recipe
 
Recipe ingredients
3 C. cooked pinto beans
1 onion, minced
2 T. lard or vegetable oil
5 slices bacon, minced
3/4 C. chorizo
1 lb. tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
6 serrano chiles, minced
1 tsp. cumin
Recipe method
Saute the beans and onion in lard or oil for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
In another skillet, saute the bacon and chorizo. Drain.
Combine the beans and onion with the drained bacon and chorizo in a pot.
Add remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes.
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
pinto bean n. [after American Spanish frijol pinto a mottled type of bean common esp. in Northern Mexico and also in the United States.] the mottled seed of a variety of the kidney bean, Phaseolus vulgaris, which is widely cultivated in the south-western United States and Central America; (also) the plant itself.
1913 College Courier (State Coll. New Mexico) Dec. 2/4 The light *Pinto bean of pale flesh color with brown flecks or bands seems to be the better conditioned of the two. 1924 W. M. RAINE Troubled Waters xxvii. 269 Pinto beans..were no sooner out and stacked than the men were hard at it putting in winter wheat.
   
19 May 1913, Dallas Morning News, pg. 20:
PINTO BEANS PROVING
POPULAR IN DALLAS
(...)
On account of the exceptionally high price of California pink beans the Dallas jobbers have this season introduced what is known as the pinto bean, which is a pink speckled bean about the size of the pink and 1c a pound cheaper. The people substituted it so largely for the more costly varieties that they have about cleaned up the supply and the price was yesterday marked up 1/4c a pound. Great yields of pinto beans are produced in New Mexico and Arizona.
 
The College Courier
State College of New Mexico
College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts
December 1913
Volume 2, No. 1
Pg. 4, col. 2:

FOOD VALUE OF PINTO BEANS,
A DRY FARM CROP.
(By S. R. Mitchell, Assistant Chemist.)

Recent inquiries at this station for the analysis of Pinto beans and others to show the comparative food values, have resulted in the analysis and tabulation of chemical analyses of a number of different varieties of beans.
 
The average “frijoles” contain from 22 to 24 per cent of protein, on a water-free basis. This is the most important nutrient to be considered in beans, and was consequently the only food constituent determined in the five samples of frijoles recently received by the Chemical Department for comparative analysis.
 
“Pinto” beans, as the commercial term is applied, apparently belong to the “frijoles” group, which comprises about 30 varieties. The same so-called “pinto” bean has gone also by the name of “Rosillo,” and seems to fit the description given in Bulletin No. 68, Arizone Experiment Station, for the Garaypata or Mexican tick beans. Garaypata may produce in two shades, with two different markings on each. One shade is the darker or hydrangea pink, with some shade of brown flecks or bands.  The other, lighter shade, is pale flesh color, with he flecks or bands of brown.
 
The light Pinto bean of pale flesh color with brown flecks or bands seems to be the better conditioned of the two, and from chemical examination probably of greater food value. This same variety of Pinto bean, from a number of analyses, shows from 1 to 2 per cent less protein, on the water-free basis, than a single sample of California Pink beans, or an average of American White or Navy beans; though this is a comparatively small difference in such an amount of protein, and when compared under market conditions is scarcely appreciable. When we compare the beans as they occur on the market there is a difference of only 1 per cent in protein between the average American White or Navy and a single Pinto variety, on account of the difference in moisture; and this difference may vary with different samples.
   
The following is taken from Arizona Station bulletin No. 68, and might easily be applicable to New Mexico conditions: “Ample supply of good soil and good water and other conditions favorable, beans and teparies should yield from 300 to 1,100 pounds per acre.  (...)”

Posted by Barry Popik
Texas (Lone Star State Dictionary) • Saturday, December 02, 2006 • Permalink


Commenting is not available in this channel entry.