History, This variety of beans, is grown mainly in Montechiaro, a fraction of the municipality of Vico Equense in the Sorrentine Peninsula; it is native to this place, a wonderful village overlooking the Gulf of Sorrento.
The custodians of this ancient seed are aware of this heritage. In fact, for centuries, the Butirro bean has been planted on the terraces of this old village, where time at least for agriculture seems to have stopped.
in fact: the hoeing of the soil, the sowing, the tamping of the furrows, the harvesting, the threshing, the sorting, the selection is all made by hand without the aid of any mechanical means exactly as it was a hundred and more years ago.
The old farmers who guarded this variety of beans are now few. The selection of seeds for the following year is a real ritual.
It is said that many generations ago, an old farmer gave a handful of these seeds to a neighbor of his farm, with the recommendation to plant them in the following years as a propitiatory and auspicious rite.
It looks like a dry bean, with an oval shape with a brownish eye. The color is yellowish, tending to butter. The name derives from this.
The preparation to taste them: they must be soaked in cold water one night, during which they increase in volume and soften, rinsed and put to cook, left to simmer for about an hour, after cooking they must be salted. They can be used in different ways, used cold in peasant salads; the dish for which they are most used is pasta and beans, the aromas to be added are of personal choice.
The full-bodied flavor and the mild taste recall the territory they come from a hard land to cultivate, light, with the sea wind that always caresses it.