During the summer months, the orchards of Navarre and Rioja display one of their most precious vegetable jewels: the pocha, or early variety of bean that is consumed before it is ripe. Its name does not do it justice, as the adjective with which it is designated only alludes to the “pocho” and faded colour that the pod has at the time of harvest. Inside, a greenish-white bean that has not yet dried out awaits to be cooked with care, without rushes or long cooking times, just enough to make it shine in all its splendour. Fine and delicate, the pocha was on its way to being a legume, but it remained a summer vegetable for the enjoyment of gourmets and seekers of vegetable treasures.
Like so many other botanical delicacies, it was the monks who began to consume and cultivate them within the walls of the Navarrese monasteries towards the end of the 18th century, as recorded in the Administration Book of the Convent of Santo Domingo of the Dominican Fathers of Sangüesacited by Juan Cruz Labeaga in his work Sangüesa’s dietThe town is, in turn, one of the towns that has best known how to preserve tradition with a annual festival at the end of September dedicated entirely to exalting this gastronomic gem: In Praise of Pocha.
Amaya Flores, tourism technician at the Cederna Gadalur Association, a Local Action Group for the development of the Navarre Mountains, says that “Sangüesa pocha is the star product, the star of an important fair in the region where, in addition to the local producers’ market, tastings are held in which up to 800 plates of pochas have been served together with the tasting of a related local product. But what we like most is seeing the traditional shelling done by grandmothers. The generational change in this crop is fundamental,” she explains.
Popular gastronomic festivals
Pocha and summer festivities have gone hand in hand for more than two centuries. The feast begins with San Fermín, in Pamplona, continues in Tudela and Tafalla, and ends in September in Sagüensa (from the 27th to the 29th) and Azagra. Ancient harvest festivals Christianized over the centuries in which this local delicacy was enjoyed, a gastronomic pleasure for which it was worth paying a few reales. In fact, said D. Víctor Manuel Sarobe, member of the Basque Academy of Gastronomy and author Popular Navarrese cuisinethat in the Navarrese town of Ablitas the Dominican friars themselves paid four reales in 1783 for some beans, precious and scarce, with which to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.
This delicacy from Navarre’s orchards was not usually widely available. It was precisely its low yield that caused some native varieties such as the Arriñonada and the Bolo to disappear from the market, which is why the INTIA (Navarre Institute of Agrifood Technologies and Infrastructures) is currently trying to recover some of these genetically pure seeds. Apart from these two endemic varieties, the consumer can find in local markets the Caparrona from Sagüensa, the Medio Palo, which is harvested until the beginning of October, the one from Vera de Bidasoa with the smallest grain and the Lumbier, with a wider pod.
For Carlos Álvarez, a senior industrial engineer and producer of organic pochas on the Biotrilla family farm (Buñuel, Navarra), the pocha season lasts a month and a half: “From San Fermin to the end of August, when we harvest up to 600 kilos that are sold for 7.15 euros. After the season, what we usually do is freeze it,” he says. “Pocha,” explains Álvarez, “is very tender after a short cooking, without soaking, and can be recognised by its colour, between green and white. When you touch them, make sure the pod doesn’t crackle. It has to be soft, tender and the grain very fresh. They are eaten plain, with peppers, and even with eels.”
Although, according to the Basque academic Víctor Manuel Sarobe, the birthplace of pocha is Navarre – traditionally they were grown in Sagüensa, Puente La Reina, Tafalla and Tudela – their cultivation has spread to the neighbouring communities of La Rioja and Euskadi, where the soil is soft, well drained and rich in humus. They grow in low bushes and stubble or rising up from among the canes, but they are harvested manually. The producer is obliged to collect them in this way, one by one, starting with the ones at the bottom, to check that each pod is at its best.
Recipes with beans, traditional and Michelin
The traditional recipe book of these towns includes, in addition to the classic preparation in which they are cooked in a pot —always without boiling, just “smiling”, as they say in Puente La Reina— along with tomato (the ugly one from Tudela, if possible), garlic, onion and green pepper, the pochas from Sagüensa with a bit of chorizo, lean bacon chop or txungur (cured pork ham bone), pochas with eels from Tudela —“softened” according to the people of Tudela—, pochas with frogs from the town of Tafalla, with bonito and clams, with borage or lamb tail of the Churra breed (a very old preparation collected by Vázquez Montalbán) and, of course, with quail in the autumn.
But pochas are also enjoyed in Michelin-starred kitchens. Josean Alija, chef at the Nerua Guggenheim Bilbao restaurant, uses vacuum cooking to keep them intact and soft in a minimalist and delicate dish. “At Nerua, we buy them from a supplier in Mendavia (Navarra), we try to respect their seasonality, more for an emotional reason; that is why we use them from August to early autumn,” explains Alija. “And the fact is that pochas add meatiness, flavour and texture to any dish. One of my favourite recipes with this product, and ideal for summer, is pochas with pickled vegetables.”
In all dishes, traditional or contemporary, the bean must be slightly floury, tender and fine to the palate. Nutritionally speaking, this early Phaseolus vulgaris which some claim was already consumed in Europe before the arrival of American beans, will contribute to a supply of protein, fiber and minerals such as magnesium and phosphorus, a perfect combination to reconcile us with spoon dishes in summer.
#Pochas #bean #didnt #legume
