Little Loathsome Bean

McMurdo Station, Antarctica

I have never met a green bean that I liked. There was one sunny afternoon when I wandered through a community garden with a preschooler on my heels and we picked fresh green beans from the vine. I munched on one of those, and found it to be not altogether unpleasant. I have also been known to tolerate green beans buried in cream of mushroom soup and topped with crispy fried onions, but I think that is where my appreciation for green beans ends.

The only vegetable I find more loathsome than the lowly green bean is the green pepper. I have very strong feelings about green peppers, and they are not the warm, fuzzy sort of feelings. I truly believe that the world would be a better place without green peppers. I think that they tarnish everything they touch so that any dish that has ever contained green peppers, even if the peppers have been removed, is pretty much ruined. Red, yellow, purple peppers? Bring ‘em on. Chiles, Jalapenos, Banana peppers, and even Habaneros have all made appearances in my kitchens over the years. But green bell peppers have no place in my life.

I am not a vegetable hater. I have a longstanding love affair with Kale and a lingering childhood love of carrots. I’ll eat a whole plate of roasted parsnips and potatoes, and my favorite thing about the holidays is the fresh asparagus that’s flown in. In the summertime, I subsist mostly on leafy greens and homegrown tomatoes, along with the wealth of seasonal fruit. But my love of all things crisp and homegrown simply does not extend to green peppers and green beans.

It’s a bit of a wonder then, that I found myself scooping heaping spoonfuls of green beans onto my plate of curry at lunch. The truth is, I am desperate for vegetables. The spike in population and the decrease in flights has meant a significant decrease in the per capita vegetable availability, here in this barren, soil-less place. Freshies (our beloved New Zealand produce, eggs, and dairy) seem scarce these days, making their appearance primarily in the deli and on the egg grill. Four months into my stay here in the Southernmost reaches of the planet, I am growing bored of the food and dreamy about vegetables. My desperation for something that remotely resembles something that once came out of a garden is apparent in every scoop of green beans.