Twenty-five years ago, there was barely a farmer in America who knew how to grow these things.
Today they can’t get them in the ground fast enough. Why? Hummus!
OK! So let’s set the record straight: This is a chickpea.
This is a garbanzo.
They’re the same thing!
Now if you’ve seen this show you know that I love to get to the bottom of a food’s name.
So I talked to lots of chickpea experts: farmers, breeders, agronomists.
And no one could really explain why America is the only English speaking country that
uses the Spanish name, garbanzo.
But I have a theory:
Long before Americans were eating hummus, long before we were growing chickpeas in a
big way, we only knew them as a canned bean.
And those canned beans... were coming from Mexico.
Chickpeas are packed with protein.
They’re starchy and filling.
So they became central to so many cuisines.
India grows more chickpeas than the rest of the world combined.
You’ll find them in stews like chana masala.
But the chickpea plant — one of the oldest cultivated foods on earth — originated in
the Middle East.
From Egypt to Israel to Lebanon, you’ll find chickpea dishes like falafel and hummus
everywhere.
In fact, the Arabic word for chickpeas is “hummus.”
When America’s own chickpea industry took off in the 1990s, the crop was mostly sent abroad.
But now domestic consumption has skyrocketed.
Our lust for hummus — a plant-based, gluten-free, vegan puree of chickpeas — means a lot more
of the crop is being used right here at home.
So I’m heading to the heart of chickpea country, along the Washington-Idaho border
where Sabra, America’s top hummus producer, sources 100% of its chickpeas.
They’re grown by a group of family farms — all members of the Pacific Northwest Farmers Cooperative.
This mesmerizingly beautiful place is called the Palouse.
Today it’s blanketed in farmland but it was once all prairie grass.
These were the hunter-gatherer lands of Native Americans and their famous Appaloosa horses.
Under Abraham Lincoln, the Homestead Act opened up millions of acres of these hills to settlers.
And by the 1920’s it was known as the wheat basket of the world.
The farmers here still grow lots of wheat; but now they’re also a top source for chickpeas.
Chickpeas require very little water -- that makes them perfect for the dry lands of the Palouse.
Farmers here don’t actually irrigate!
They don’t need to: these soils are deep and rich.
They hold the water from the fall and winter, and that sustains the chickpea plant until
it’s time to harvest, when farmers actually want the plant to dry out.
But we’ll come back to that in a minute.
Now, the chickpea is often called a bean.
But like all beans, chickpeas are actually seeds!
They’re the seed of a legume plant.
What’s a legume?
That’s the family that includes lentils, and soybeans, and green peas, pretty much
anything we eat that grows in a pod.
And that’s exactly how chickpeas grow: one, maybe two, in each stubby little pod!
But before there can be pods, there must be plants!
I’m meeting up with Travis Grieser, whose ancestors were original homesteaders here.
Travis rotates between wheat, barley, and chickpeas across his 2200 acre farm.
That’s actually considered a mid-sized holding in these parts!
In April, Travis covered 700 acres with chickpea seeds.
(Nicole): So you plant the very chickpea that we eat?
(Travis): Yup.
That’s what we plant right there.
And in fact, this field is seed, so…
(Nicole): Oh! These are being grown for seed for next year’s crop!
Chickpeas might all look the same to you and me but there are hundreds, if not thousands,
of different kinds.
The one Travis grows for Sabra is known for its smooth texture and nutty flavor, and is
smaller than the chickpeas sold in cans.
Let’s try a green one. Here we go.
Mm, oh, it’s so sweet.
It’s so much better than a green pea because it has the nuttiness of a chickpea.
Guys, if you knew how delicious this was, we would all be demanding green chickpeas.
Insects don’t really bother chickpea plants here.
That’s because the plants secrete acid through fine hair-like glands that cover the pods and stems.
The acid doesn’t hurt humans, but if you get it on your clothes…
(Travis): Yeah, I’ve had a friend that, he actually wore pants three or four times
out in a bean field and then went to wash them, and it actually ate holes in his pant
legs.
(Nicole): As the plant dries out, that acid sort of dries out as well.
But I do feel a bit of a sticky substance on my fingers.
(Travis) Yeah.
(Nicole): That I probably shouldn’t be rubbing in right now.
Throughout the summer, the plants will flower and grow pods, until it gets so hot and dry
that the plant starts to shut down.
By September, the chickpeas are mature inside their pods and drying out in the field.
Which is what the farmers want: if they’re picked with too much moisture, they’ll rot
in the storage bins.
Harvest here is dramatic.
The hills of the Palouse are steep.
A combine does two things: it cuts the plants down AND it threshes them — that means it
knocks the chickpeas out of their pods.
Fourth-generation farmer Doug Stout is a bit of a rockstar in these parts — he’s won
national awards for his top yields.
But quantity isn’t the only thing he’s after — he wants quality.
So what matters more than size is the color of the chickpeas.
They all must be a uniformly creamy-tan — because, well, that’s how we like our hummus to look.
Nailing the correct color is mission critical for these farmers: if they fail, their chickpeas
could be downgraded — which means they make less money or they could be rejected altogether.
So what affects the color?
As Doug is harvesting his chickpeas, he’s also cutting whatever weeds are in the field.
Those weeds have juices in their stems and leaves, which could stain the chickpeas black
as it all passes through the combine and gets mushed together.
So this is really a moment of truth: has Doug done a good enough job at controlling the
weeds in his fields?
Well, we’re about to find out!
Riding in the combine is the best place to be — while my camera man is being choked
by the clouds of dust we’re kicking up, I’m in a protected little bubble.
As sturdy as the combine is, going down the steepest hills, I still felt my heart in my mouth.
OK, we are so vertical that I am, like, pressing down on my feet to keep seated!
Doug reckons the field we’re harvesting could be a record-breaker.
And I must say, it looks very weed-free.
Woohoo!
I didn’t want it to end.
I leave him to carry on, and just as I’m starting to regret not getting behind the
wheel myself, I get a call from my buddy Travis.
He’s getting out his grain gleaner — a small combine whose header doesn’t automatically
flex with the terrain.
And he’s got a nice, flat patch for me to try!
Travis squeezes himself into the cab beside me for a quick lesson.
There’s a lot more to monitor and adjust on this combine.
Finally I give it a go myself.
I’m on my own baby.
Hey, at least I didn’t run over Travis’ dog.
It’s hard to believe that the booming chickpea industry here almost blew up before it began.
Back in the 80s, when chickpeas were first grown on the Palouse, they were wiped out
by a fungus.
But the industry was reborn, thanks to a gift of chickpea samples… from Syria!
Where they had already bred varieties resistant to that specific blight.
Local breeders brought them back to the Pacific Northwest where they were crossed with other varieties.
From those chickpeas blossomed this!
I love the thought of something Syrian thriving here in the face of all the devastation that
country has been through.
And I love that it’s chickpeas — the foundation of hummus, a food at the heart of middle-eastern cuisine.
So, I think this is a good time to clear something up for those of us who don’t live in the
middle east: hummus is way more than you think it is.
Follow me to my kitchen…
Hummus is so much more than just a snack.
In the Middle East, it’s often the meal.
And that’s how I like to eat it: as the main star of a dish, sort of like you’d
think about pasta.
Today I’m going to start with Sabra’s classic hummus -- maybe made with chickpeas
that I helped harvest — and I’m going to serve it with roasted vegetables and an
easy sundried tomato pesto.
I’m using bell pepper, zucchini and eggplant, but you can use your favorite vegetables.
Toss it with olive oil, salt and pepper, and roast in the oven at 425 F until they’re
soft and tender, about 30 minutes.
OK, while that’s roasting, you’re going to make your sun-dried tomato pesto in a food processor.
You’re going to use sun-dried tomatoes, parsley, basil, garlic, lemon juice and a
pinch of salt.
Blend it all with 3 tablespoons of olive oil.
I like to use the stuff that comes right out of the jar of sun-dried tomatoes.
You want it to be a sauce that’s still a little chunky.
I’m going to put the full recipe, with all the measurements, in the YouTube video description below.
OK, now let’s put it all together.
Place the hummus at the bottom of your bowl.
And make sure it’s at room temperature; not cold from the fridge.
Spoon the tomato pesto down the middle.
Arrange the warm vegetables around.
Maybe a sprig of parsley.
And a sprinkle of pine nuts wouldn’t hurt either.