We all know that eating is closely linked with love and celebration. But the English language also contains a weird link between eating and humiliation. If you make a presumptuous claim and it falls flat, you might eat crow, eat your words, or eat humble pie. And if you are 100 percent certain that the universe will comply with your predictions, you might promise to eat your hat in the unlikely event that your hubris turns out to be misplaced.
The first time I ate Greek-style green beans, I luckily did not have to consume the above delicacies as a side dish, because I’d kept my snarky thoughts to myself. Until the moment I tasted them, however, I was 100 percent certain the dish would suck. How could it not? It consisted of fresh green beans and tomatoes stewed for the better part of an hour in olive oil. On purpose.
Peter and I had driven up to Newburyport that day, to visit Greg, the friend who had first introduced us more than a decade earlier, and his then-wife, Claire. The sky was gray and drizzly, the drive long and tedious. When we walked into their warm kitchen, a beautiful aroma greeted us along with their hugs.
“Mmm. What are you making?” I asked.
“Greek green beans,” said Greg. Claire is Greek, and he’d taken up Greek cooking as a kind of valentine to her. When I looked perplexed, he described the recipe to me, explaining that lathera — slow-poaching in olive oil and herbs — is a traditional Greek approach to making vegetables.
Huh, I thought when he was done. What a dumb thing to do to perfectly nice green beans.
By now you know where this story is going: The beans were amazing. We sat around the kitchen in the middle of the afternoon snacking on them like potato chips.
When I’d first met Peter (thank you, Greg) I was pretty skeptical about him, too. Last week, we drove up to New Hampshire to celebrate our 25th anniversary. On the morning we were scheduled to leave, I realized, with the sort of manic, last-minute urgency that always overcomes me before a trip, that I absolutely had to make Greek-style green beans.
I hadn’t cooked the dish for 15 years, not since the aftermath of that long-ago visit to Newburyport. But my refrigerator held some tough, overgrown green beans and softening tomatoes. I also had a bag of new potatoes on hand — a wonderful addition to the dish — and I realized that if I didn’t cook them, they’d go bad while we were away.
I packed the finished stew in a couple of jars and we drove off through the drizzle into the White Mountains.
The next evening, Peter and I sat down to supper in the farmhouse kitchen, a fire purring in the wood stove. No, it wasn’t caviar and champagne. But to me, it was a perfect celebration of a quarter-century marriage. Though it’s no beauty, what this dish lacks in eye-appeal it makes up for in deliciousness. It’s also flexible, adapting to whatever proportions of vegetables and herbs you have on hand. It’s patient: You can put all the ingredients in the pot and trust that they will simmer their way to silky goodness all on their own. And it keeps.
Best of all, it’s forgiving, tolerating beans that are starting to go to seed, potatoes with a few sprouting eyes — and possibly even a few slices of crow or humble pie, though I couldn’t say for sure.
Greek-style Green Beans with Tomatoes and Potatoes
⅓ to ½ cup olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1¼ pounds green beans, trimmed
1 15-ounce can whole tomatoes, or 1 pound fresh tomatoes, chopped
⅓ cup chopped parsley, plus more for serving
1 pound potatoes, sliced ¼- to ⅓-inch thick (cut slices into half-circles if large)
Salt and pepper to taste
For serving: feta cheese (preferably sheep’s milk) and crusty bread
In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium-low. Add the diced onion and cook until translucent and soft, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and beans and stir to coat well, then mix in the tomatoes, ⅓ cup parsley, ½ teaspoon salt and several grindings of black pepper. Add enough water to submerge the vegetables about halfway. Cover the pot, reduce the heat to low and simmer 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the potato slices and continue cooking until the vegetables are quite tender, about 15 minutes more.
Serve with parsley, lots of feta and crusty bread alongside.
