Fake 181

Fake 181 took the form of some beans which looked like runner beans from a distance, but were clearly not the sort of beans that I might have grown on my allotment at close quarters. Bought from a recycled refrigerated display unit outside the Manor Green Road butcher.

Both Tesco's and Sainsbury's offer long green beans which they sell as green beans rather than runner beans, which might come from the UK or the Netherlands, but are more likely to come from one of a number of countries across the northern part of Africa - or from Guatemala.

Not quite right though, so next stop Bing, who turns up a large variety of long beans, some very long. Next stop Google Images with one of those varieties, unnamed by Bing, who comes up with Roma beans which are getting pretty warm. But then, from reference 2 in Ireland, a climbing flat bean called 'Helda', not a runner bean proper at all. and if the seeds are sold in Ireland, no doubt they can be grown here.

So probably not a runner bean, but some variety of climbing flat bean. More work needed.

I think we have had them before and been a bit disappointed: no strings which was good, but not much of the flavour or crunchiness of a real runner bean which was bad. On this occasion though, they went down very well, taken with a second round of the kedgeree noticed at reference 3. It was rather better on this occasion too.

Hand-me-down cooking apples, stewed, visible top middle, just to the right of the saucepan. Very good they were too.

More good news in that Batch No.728 turned out very well, despite a misunderstanding about the second rise time. In the event, I caught the second rise just in time and the finished loaves, while not pretty, were well risen. It was lucky that the oven was already a good way to bread heat with the kedgeree. And the loaf which has been opened looked and tasted very well. Perhaps even better in the morning following than the evening before. Just as well, having had two not-so-good batches in the hot weather we had earlier in the month.

PS 1: a little later, a sudden panic. Was it really an oak tree noticed at reference 6? I had assumed so, but without going so far as to check the leaves. So I zoomed into one of the original snaps to get reasonably clear images of oak leaves against the trunk, snapped above. Elsewhere, this being on my large but old HP HDMI screen, I got all kinds of strange image processing artefacts, involving branches, leaves and the bright light behind. Artefacts which put me in mind of our newish linocut noticed at reference 4, making me wonder whether the artist had been playing with some working snaps on her computer.

And to be doubly sure, I fed the original snap into Google Images, who returned a collection of trees, mostly but not all oak trees. But in pole position we had a handsome looking tree on a file called 'Ranshofen Stieleiche'. I now know that the former is a place in Germany and the latter is German for pedunculate oak of reference 5. Conclusive enough to say oak tree, not further specified.

PS 2: some of these effects appear to have survived the blogging process, to the right of the tree trunk, at least on the same old HP screen, probably not on a telephone. Maybe rather more in the second such snap immediately above.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/07/fake-180.html.

Reference 2: https://www.fruithillfarm.com/bean-helda-organic-seeds.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/shopping.html.

Reference 4: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/02/gnashed.html.

Reference 5: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_robur.

Reference 6: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2024/08/hcp.html.

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