Post Punk Kitchen Forum

I was looking for dried brown fava beans, and finally found them here: http://www.purcellmountainfarms.com/Dried%20Beans.htm -- just look at all those beans! Has anyone ordered from here? The prices are more than twice what I would pay in the grocery store for a bag of dried beans, but on par with farmers market prices for heirloom varieties. I am so tired of buying dried beans at the grocery store only to find that they are old and dried up and will not cook evenly--I would gladly pay a bit extra for fresher beans.

Another website I found with heirloom beans (but no fava beans) is this: http://www.ranchogordo.com/mm5/merchant ... ode=DHAHB4 -- any feedback on either of these websites would be greatly appreciated.

What is your favorite source for dried beans online?

Rancho Gordo!!!

I normally buy from Rancho Gordo but I did have an order from Purcell. The Rancho Gordo beans were much better. More than that, the Purcell ones had a lot of stones despite my best efforts to root them out.

Rancho Gordo also works with small farmers within Mexico to provide a few of the varieties. I appreciate their efforts to support smaller farmers in a fair trade type arrangement.

If you have a Middle-Eastern grocery store around you, go there for fava beans! Seriously, I pay like 2, 3 dollars tops for a pound of fava beans. And you can stock up, avoid shipping and support a local small business. Now thanks for reminding me to make ful mudamas.

Glad to hear Rancho Gordo has good beans. I would probably be annoyed about having to pick out lots of stones, as I am used to my beans being relatively clean and just picking them over for broken or shriveled beans, and the occasional stowaway of a different variety. Thanks for the info linanil

There are a couple of Asian and Indian groceries I want to check for fava beans (no Middle-Eastern specific ones in town as far as I know) and another grocery store does have them canned, which I will probably pick up just so I can get my ful medames project underway. I am curious about the other heirloom beans, though, and it might be worth the expense for some of them.

I haven't found beluga lentils for a better price online than at Purcell, but now I'm concerned I might get a bag half full of small black stones!