Pellegrini Pole Bean

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Back! My favorite snap bean, and my favorite dry bean. A true heirloom, passed from gardener to gardener for generations. The flat, yellow, pods have rich, creamy Romano flavor and non-fibrous texture, even when the beans were well-formed inside, (though strings will form if you let them go that long). The mature dried beans are marked in brown and white, which gives them their name of Monachine--"little nuns". They are outstanding. I like to have one row for fresh eating and another for dry beans. They will mature a crop of dry beans even in Seattle's mild summers.


Angelo Pellegrini was the godfather of the Slow Food and local food movements. He came to America from Italy as a child--barefoot and speaking no English. He became a beloved professor of English Literature at the University of Washington, and the author of many books, including The Food Lover's Garden which still inspires readers with his zest for living, his humor, and his vision of the Good Life based on the pleasures of the garden and the table. In 1945, he introduced Americans to pesto, then totally unknown here. This bean was his personal favorite. He would cook the dry beans simply, and eat them one by one with a sprinkle of olive oil. After his death it was believed lost, but his son was able to give 11 beans to the HerbFarm restaurant, which brought it back from the brink. I am so happy to offer this historic heirloom bean. 40 seeds

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These were a feature of the Seattle garden of Angelo Pellegrini, who came to the US from Italy as a child and became a professor of English Literature at the University of Washington. He was the author of several wonderful books on gardening and eating well. He published the first recipe for pesto in the US (in 1946) and is widely considered the father of the local foods movement. He thought this the best-tasting bean of all, and grew it every year. It was saved from extinction when his son gave 11 seeds to the Herbfarm restaurant, who grew and increased it. Originally brought from Italy by the Mondavi family.