Mexican Bean Eating versus American Bean Eating
Following Rancho Gordo‘s lament for the decline of the bean in Mexico in comments on this blog, let me say I couldn’t agree more. If they continue to decline at the same rate that is. Right now every man, woman and child is, on average, consuming twenty six pounds of beans a year, half a pound of beans a week, a good bit more when cooked of course. So my suspicion is that thus far much of what is happening is that those who could not afford meat are now substituting part of their beans with meat.
And I think people do still appreciate their beans. I remember a conversation amongst my walking companions a couple of years ago. One of them had been skiing in Colorado and we were busily pumping her for all the juicy details. She was desperate for her beans she said. And one day on the buffet table in the hotel restaurant she saw beans. Her heart lit up, her mouth watered, and she piled a nice portion on her plate. When she sat down to eat, though, she discovered they were SWEET. Horrors. She left the rest of the pile untouched.
I ran across this interesting and not terribly out-of-date article about bean consumption in the United States based on USDA data. There in the mid 90s it was about 7 lbs a person a year or about one quarter of Mexican consumption.
