HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Citizens News, 1974-08-22, Page 17PAGE 18
ZURICH CITIZENS NEWS SOUVENIR EDITION
International Scene
(by Raymond Cannon)
BEANS AND THE BEAN
FESTIVAL
I like the idea of smaller
communities having some type
of festival which is meaning-
ful to the village and the sur-
rounding district. For this reas-
on I take a great deal of int-
erest in the bean festival held
each year late in August in
the village of Zurich. This
community has done an excell-
ent job of building up this fest-
ival over the past few years
and it is certainly worth visiting
if you have not yet been there.
The date this year is August
24 which is a Saturday. Take
the whole family as there is
something for everybody and
it lasts all day.
In my old stamping grounds
in St. Gall, Switzerland, which
is about 50 miles from the
Zurich in that country, we used
to have a children's festival
each year in which the child-
ren of the city and canton
would all parade wearing dres-
ses made by the famous textile
industry located in the district.
Like the Zurich festival in
Canada, everybody pitched in
to snake the day a success,
there was plenty to eat and
drink, something for everybody
to do and, when it was allover,
there were a lot of tired but
very happy people.
Actually, what I started to
talk about was beans so I had
better get back to the subject.
One bit of trouble that I have
when translating this word is
there are so inany varieties of
it that I have to stop and ask
Poorer quality beans are
kept by the farmers and used
for feeding cattle. The beans
are cookedin a big electric
kettle before they are used for
feed.
the person which type of bean
he is talking about.
In the business I am in,
when we talk about beans, it
Is usually the soybean as this
is the one that is being bought
and sold in large quantities
all over the world. It's import-
ance lies in the fact that it has
a very high protein content
and, in the feed business, prot-
ein is name of the game. This
bean originally came from
China and for centuries has
been a major source of food and
oil in the Far East. It took a
long time to get to this part of
the world but it is now grown in
large quantities in Southwestern
Ontario. Soybean oil is gener-
ally used for food products
although it is also important in
the paint and chemical indust-
ries. The soybean meal is used
mainly for animal food but it
is also utilized for human con-
sumption.
What is frequently called the
French or haricot bean is more
common to this continent and,
like other types of the bean,
has spread to other parts of
the world where it is grown and
eaten. While a soybean is a
soybean just about anywhere yot
go, you have to be very care-
ful what you call French beans
since this seems to change
from area to area. This is, of
course, not to be confused with
kidney beans or lima beans or,
I should point out, the white
beans that you will eat at
Zurich. My wife tells me
about the navy beans that
they used to prepare in Nova
Scotia, well soaked in molass-
es, and. I suppose that some
readers may even have a recipe
for this type of bean.
Among the other types of
beans I mentioned was the lima
bean and this, I should point
WE NOP YOU ENJOY YOUR VISIT!
THE ZURICH LIONS CLUB
WILL BE CONDUCTING A
CASH BI 9 G 1.•+Y
at the Bean Festival, Join Us 1
out, is one kind that is little
known outside of the Americas.
It doesn't seen, to have caught
on elsewhere and they are
grown mainly for food.
I tried to get the total numb-
er of acres of beans produced in
the world but somehow the
C.I.A. doesn't release this
sort of information. I had to
content myself with some fig-
ures from the U.S. which
showed that bean growing was
indeed a big business over
there. For soybeans an average
of 21, 000, 000 acres, common
beans were way down the list
with about 2, 000, 000 acres..
I think that will give you some
indication that there are,
indeed, a great many beans
raised in a single year.
One last comment about
beans. In other parts of the
world I have had servings of
bean sprouts, very tender and
very tasty. This doesn't seem
to have caught on here much
unless you have a liking for
Chinese food. If my informat-
ion is correct, the type of bean
used for this is called the mung
bean and is a native of India.
Anyway, I hope you have a
-good time in Zurich. Rememb-
er the date this year is August
24 and if you haven't been
there, it is not hard to find on
the map. If you like to get an
early start, you can even have
breakfast there. Hope you
have a good time.
ZURICH BEAN FESTIVAL
ANCE
featuring
TWO BIG BANDS
°Me
rn
EA
H ;R
h
and the
°URLITES"
FESTIVAL NITE Aar, F, Int 2
defacing from 8 p.m. t 1 a.:.
�p nsored by Zurich Minor Athletic Association
We urekome all those ho are attending the Bean Festival,
and hope you enjoy the activities of the day. We are
proud to assist the committee in their project.
LEO MEIDINGER
President
JOI-IN CONSITT
Secretary