Celebratin’ what? Chickpeas?
I love celebrations, but celebrate chickpeas? The topic came to me when reading an article
in my favourite Christian Canadian magazine, Christian Courier (CC), that was entitled “Celebrate chickpeas,
beans and lentils.” Unless you’re an
Asian, that probably is not the first food to turn you on. To be
honest, apart from hummus, I knew nothing about these peas until just four
years ago or so. Even then, I liked
hummus, but had no idea its main ingredient is chickpeas or garbanzo beans,
another name for it. I’d heard of them
but had no interest whatsoever in trying them, something like the author of
that article.
Establishment Treatment of Diabetes
But then things changed
drastically for me. I was and still am a diabetic. I saw my blood sugar count
slowly inch its way up. What had started with one pill had climbed up to three
and my doctor said we should start thinking about a daily fourth. It was his
idea together with the diabetic organizations that once you have contracted the
disease, it will slowly get worse and worse. You periodically add another pill
until you reach around seven and then you turn to insulin injections—slow if
you’re lucky, but sure. It will never get better. You don’t heal it; you just
manage it by slowing down its progress.
The Turn-Around Diet
Then I saw an ad in the
paper about a seminar that would show that diabetes can be restrained and, in
some cases, healed altogether. I
attended the event and came out of it with the decision to buy into this
company’s programme, enroll into their initial regime of special pills and
cleansing and from there pledge to go on their prescribed diet. I was promised
I would lose weight, my blood sugar count would go down and I would in general
feel a lot better. I paid some big bucks for it, but till today I am very happy
I did. Everything went as they promised. However, the strict diet eventually
got to me so that I started compromising. I am still on that diet, but hardly a
day goes by when I don’t compromise once. The result is that my medicines are
down to a minimum, I have lost some weight and I do feel better, but I have not
managed to free myself totally. That is my own fault for not sticking to it
more legalistically, but with that daily compromise and the diabetes reduced to
a minimum, I can live with it and am happy, happier than if I would continue to
adhere to that strictest of diets. That struggle was just too much in the long
run for one who loves to both cook and eat.
Enter the Chickpea
And that’s where the
chickpea comes in. The diet excludes wheat and all other western grains and
their derivative products. So what can you do without any flour? It is so
pervasive in our western cuisine. Two major substitutes are buckwheat and
chickpeas. Buckwheat, by the way, is not a wheat at all; it is related to
rhubarb, if you can believe that! I use
it a lot. But my attention in this post goes to chickpea. There are many websites devoted to that lowly
pea, including many great and healthy recipes. You can search them out
yourself.
Random Chickpea Uses
I use chickpeas all the
time. I use it for a thickener and for making
pancakes. Last night, my wife and I experimented with a recipe we cooked up
ourselves (pun intended). We sliced
eggplant and covered it with a paste of an Indian mix of chickpea flour called “pakora”
and water. The pakora adds a delightful Indian taste to it. Then we deep fried
it. It tastes really great, especially
if you use a little salt on it. We made more than we could eat. So we put the
leftovers in the fridge. This morning I fried those leftovers hard and, believe
me or not, they tasted even better than last night. I am planning to serve them for breakfast next
time I have guests. Just this evening I found a very simple and easy recipe for
making crispy roasted chickpeas in the oven as a snack. Just google “crispy
roasted chickpeas in the oven” and it should surface. I’m probably going to try
it before this week is over.
Ethnic Resistance
The writer of that CC article, a farmer and fellow Dutch
Canadian I have never met, called Meindert Vander Galen, said he is not keen on
eating chickpeas and does not intend to eat them. “Maybe they’re healthy but
they’re not my kind of food,” he writes. He prefers that wintry comfort soup
for the Dutch, namely pea soup. Sounds a little bit like an ethnic limitation
he has not yet broken through.
A UN Declaration and Business
But why should Meindert then
promote celebrating chickpeas? Purely
business! The UN has declared 2016 the International Year of Pulses.” I’m not
going to define or explain pulses; you can do your own research. But it
includes chickpeas. This declaration is expected to create a global agricultural
concentration on chickpeas so that it will become more popular in places where
now it is relatively unknown. Meindert the farmer sees an opportunity. He’s “going
to look at maybe growing chickpeas… as a cash-crop in the future now that the UN
has given it a big boost.” So, of course
he promotes chickpeas even to the point of celebrating them. And the more you
celebrate them by eating, the more he will celebrate increased sales.
Bob's Red Mill
Bob’s Red Mill is one major
source for garbanzo bean flour. On the package right here next to my keyboard I
read that they
are one of the creamiest and
tastiest of beans. Flour made from this delicious bean lends a sweet, rich flavour
to baked goods. Garbanzo flour is a good source of fibre and is especially good
for gluten-free baking. It can also be used to thicken soups, sauces or gravies.
Now that’s advertising, of
course, and thus we tend to take it with a grain of salt—another intended pun.
However, I have tasted it and used it now for around four years and testify that
this is an ad you can and should believe for your own sake. Even if you’re not
a diabetic, it will add a very healthy and great-tasting component to your
cuisine.
I am proud to have the opportunity to introduce you to
it and thus enrich your life. After all,
you’re in the world, which, according to Christ, makes you my neighbor. 
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