Hi everyone. I am new here, and I eat a lot of beans. [i eat a lot of cornbread, too, and I have thoroughly enjoyed reading through this thread]. I agree with the Good Mother Stallard love, but I am wondering if I'm the only person who finds them really very similar to a fat red bean that Colombians eat, the Bola Roja. (When I say "really very similar," I really mean, "I'm not sure I see the difference"). I have no idea whether the bola rojas that I've consumed were "heirloom" -- although it's unlikely since at least once the brand on my bola roja bag was good ole' Goya. Another Colombian bean that reminds me of the Good Mother Stallard is called "Cargamanto" on the Colombian package. It looks like a Bola Roja, but with some cranberry-bean-looking coloring mottling across the surface. Also, for those that worry that mass-produced beans are never fresh enough, I just wanted to note that if you shop in the regular store in heavy bean-eating communities (like Latino communities, for example), the commercial beans will be quite fresh. When I first moved to a Latino neighborhood eight years ago, the Goya beans were so fresh that they would be done half an hour before the meat stock was done; I started making the stock separately so I wouldn't end up with bean mush every time. I have never had to deal with a chalky bean once I started buying them in the neighborhoods of ethnicities that eat them regularly. It's of course true that you aren't going to get the subtlety or depth of flavor with mass-produced varieties that you will with, say, Rancho Gordo [Cayuga Organics, on the other hand . . . I honestly don't get why people pay for those beans at all, ever], but I think it's valuable to remember that one can find comparatively fresh beans at regular prices in places where the consumers are accustomed to them. This is kind of obvious but I wanted to repeat it.
