Originating in Mexico and brought back to Europe by several Spanish navigators, the white bean rose to fame thanks to Pope Clement VII*, who received some as a gift. The monks who were given the responsibility of growing the beans found that the Marais Poitevin was ideal, and the bean's ease of cultivation and keeping qualities meant that it was adopted throughout France very quickly (unlike the potato, which was not accepted in France as food for humans until the end of the 18th century, despite being introduced from South America at much the same time as the white beans).
After some decades had elapsed, the maritime climate of the Vendée, on the Atlantic coast, had allowed the area to become one of the principle territories where the white bean was cultivated and it became known as the Mogette. The name 'mogette' is a corruption of 'maugette' which is 'little monk' in Occitan.
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| SuperU's excellent gourmet brand 'Saveurs' mogettes de Vendée. |
Today the Mogette de Vendée is renowned as a top quality product. There are 70 producers who are certified Label Rouge (the most trusted food standard label in France, not organic, but ensuring sustainable, traditional farming methods, and quality is valued over quantity) and since 2010 can be labelled as IGP (Indication Géographique Protegée), guaranteeing their origin. The Vendée is still one of the major producers of white beans in France and they are harvested in August.
For those of you who have stood before the dried beans in the supermarket and wondered about which was which: lingots are the same as mogettes, but grown outside the Vendée, and both are what in English you would call cannellini beans; cocos are smaller, and in English are navy beans.
*Clement VII was the nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the Medici ruler of Florence around the turn of the 15th century. He had a famously difficult papacy, full of conflict and unrest, and died from being poisoned by a dish of mushrooms in 1534. It is unclear whether it was an accident or he was deliberately poisoned.
2 comments:
Like navel oranges are grown on ships, are navy beans doing the same?
chm: I've never heard of naval oranges being grown on ships. I thought they were called naval oranges because the blossom end looks like a naval. Navy beans, on the other hand, were used by the Americans and Australians to feed naval personnel.
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