Nostalgia Cooked
September 22, 2026
No. 14

“Hands, please”

Coffee, then read on.

- Chef Tim

I once texted 845 people to ask what their favorite candy was. I was thinking about giving candy away at the end of a very expensive dinner and wanted to know what people would actually be excited to receive. Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were by far the favorite among the responses. Have you ever had a frozen peanut butter cup? W.O.W.

At six years old, I was determined to hoard the most peanut butter cups in the Northeast. There should have been a championship belt. I would have taken defending it very seriously.

The idea of free candy was pure madness. You could walk up to somebody’s house, ring the doorbell, and they would give you some. Then you could do it again next door. Somehow all the adults had agreed to this.

I knew to look for the peanut butter cup households. They understood the assignment. Anything without a candy wrapper was suspicious, and anyone giving away chips or apples deserved an explanation. What are you doing? We have one night here.

That expectation is surprisingly recent. Although door-to-door customs go back centuries, American trick-or-treating only became widespread after World War II. We haven’t even had a century of this Halloween sales pitch as a nationwide habit.

Candy wasn’t always guaranteed, either. Historian Samira Kawash found that Kellogg’s advertised cereal Snack-Packs as Halloween handouts. Manufacturers pushed candy more heavily in the 1950s, and fears about tampered treats later helped make factory-sealed wrappers the standard.

People still love Halloween; the National Retail Federation says 74 percent plan to celebrate this year, up from 68 percent in 2019. I’m curious how much of that celebration still involves kids walking around their own neighborhood.

I wonder whether some parents feel less comfortable letting their kids go out than our parents did. I understand being cautious. But what would make families feel good about doing this again? Would walking together with other families help? Would knowing more of the people answering those doors make a difference?

I want kids to have an evening when their phones are uninteresting because somebody down the street might have better candy. Let them get excited about a peanut butter cup. Give them one night to be a little ridiculous about it. I was, and apparently I grew into someone who texts 845 people about candy.

What does Halloween look like where you live? Are kids still coming to the door, or has the celebration moved somewhere else? Parents, I’d especially like to hear what makes the evening work for your family.

And tell me your favorite candy. The polling operation remains open.

Before service, the whole crew huddles up and someone tells the story behind the food. Pull up a crate, you’re on the line tonight.

We all know these beans. Pinto, black beans, navy beans. You’ve seen them in the grocery store. What did these look like before they were dried or canned?

I hadn’t seen these before I began cooking with them fresh in California. I never put two and two together. But now, in my head, it’s the equivalent of a canned peach versus a fresh peach. Hopefully, all of you have had a good fresh peach before.

The difference is remarkable. Whether we are talking about Bush’s sugarcoated ketchup beans or the saddest-looking bag of white navy beans at the big-box supermarket, the comparison to fresh shelling beans is not even a conversation for me. You can bury a bean in barbecue sauce. You can under season a whole pot because you’re afraid to add salt while it cooks thanks to the old myth that salt keeps beans from softening. They do soften but the texture is atrocious.

And even when dried beans are seasoned properly, there’s still the texture. I don’t want a resistant skin around an interior that has already turned to mashed potato. With fresh shelling beans, I can get the skin tender while the inside is creamy and still has substance. The whole bean eats the way I want it to.

Did you know that cranberry beans, along with pintos, black beans and navy beans, belong to a species domesticated by Indigenous peoples in the Americas? Europeans brought these beans across the Atlantic and developed their own regional varieties. The borlotti we associate with Italy belong to that same species.

Yet how often do you see fresh shelling beans in your produce aisle? Better yet, how often do you see them at your farmers’ market on the East Coast? There are certain things I want to eat straight from the market. After cooking fresh shelling beans for the past decade, beans are one of them.

They won’t sit around waiting for you. Once shelled, they need to be refrigerated and cooked within a few days. We have accepted short shelf lives for lettuce, asparagus, berries, chicken. Why did we can all the beans and leave none behind?

I understand how we got here. Dried beans store well. Canned beans give you something you can open and eat in minutes. Sweetened baked beans existed before anyone put them in a can, and companies built an enormous business around making a long-cooked dish convenient. In this over simplification of the ingredient we lost the love and passion behind a craft along the way.

Farmers still grow them. Some chefs encounter them for the first time in a restaurant kitchen. Customers see “shelling beans” on a menu and have no idea why they should care. If nobody asks for them, there’s little reason for a farmer to dedicate space to something that needs to sell quickly.

When they’re in season where you live, look for them. The beans should be full-sized but still moist and tender inside their pods, picked before they dry and harden. Shuck them before cooking. Cook them in salted water or vegetable stock until tender all the way through. Toss them in a pan with some butter, and you might have the best bowl of vegetables you’ve ever eaten.

Eat these beans once and you won’t want to go back. I will die on my fresh shelling bean hill if I have to.

Ask your farmer at your next market if they’ve ever grown cranberry beans. If they say no, start the conversation. And if you see fresh shelling beans on a menu, order them.

This week, I’m pairing fresh shelling beans with Vietti Roero Arneis. This crisp Italian white suits fresh shelled beans served with some awesome crunchy bread and blistered cherry tomatoes. Serve it chilled, with bread for the broth. I’ll herd everyone to the table. It’s nice to use my qualifications.

The Nostalgia Table

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