Stuff You Should Know - Beans and Rice Feeds the World

Episode Date: August 4, 2026

To call beans and rice a staple is to undersell the importance of beans and rice. Today we break down the ubiquity of this beloved food combo.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. and Jerry's here too. When you put the three of us together, add a little miso. You got stuff you should know, which rhymes with miso. Oh, boy, he rescued that one. I was on the edge of my seat. I was like, where's this one going? Yeah.

Well, you can always bring it back to rhyming. Yeah. Unless it doesn't rhyme and then you got nothing. Well, something that doesn't rhyme is rice and beans or beans and rice. Which way do you prefer to say it? I've always said beans and rice. Really? I say the exact opposite.

Hey. I say and rice beans. You doofus. So I think I was trying to figure out why I thought of this one, because this was my idea. We did an episode on rice last year and just its importance as a crop all around the world. And I think maybe when I was in Belize, I had a beans and rice dish. And it just got me thinking. I was like, man, I feel like almost every country.

I've been to in the West and certainly every island and there's like some version of beans and rice. And I was kind of wondering what the deal was and why the combination specifically of those two things was a thing. And I guess out of this the idea was born. That's a great idea. I'm glad you did. And I definitely ate rice and beans for lunch today just from studying all this. Oh, yeah. I put together what we had on hand.

And so I had pinto beans mixed with wild rice, which was actually really good. Interesting combo. It was. I took a cue from Jerry, and I actually added a little miso to it and stirred it all together. That helped really pull the room together. And then I put some tuna on there on top. Oh, tuna on top. That's the Josh Way.

I was like, what would I call this? And I came up with frioles importantes. Did you really? Mm-hmm. Oh, no. That wasn't off the cuff, so yeah, I guess I did really. My favorite bean, if I'm going to eat beans and rice, is actually Pinto beans. Although I'm not going to turn my nose up at black beans or refried or refried black or any of that stuff.

I love all that stuff. But I love Pinto beans. What about red beans? I like red beans okay, but I much, much prefer pinto beans. Like, red beans and rice isn't my favorite out of the beans and rice dishes. Really? And my favorite rice far in a way is, and I don't know what the word for it is, or if there is one, but the very, very traditional Mexican rice that my friend PJ makes and he's going to teach me that's made with like chicken stock and tomatoes. Lard.

It's just sort of turns out a light brown, orangey color. Yeah. And it's not clumpy or sticky. It's all like the rice is very loose within each other. Yeah. That's my favorite kind of rice is that specific kind of Mexican rice. And it's almost like an orzo. Yeah.

But like other places, like the place down the street has like a cilantro rice, which is really good. But I like just that really traditional Mexican rice. I know. I agree with you. One of the ironic things, Dave helped us with this, and he pointed something up that I hadn't really considered. You said that like everywhere you've been to in the West or any island especially has their own beans and rice dish, right? Yeah. Mexico is what I always associate with, or it's certainly initially associated with rice and beans.

And they actually don't have a rice and beans dish. They just give you rice and beans. And that's actually the authentic way that Mexico does it. They don't have like a national rice and beans dish. Yeah, that's a combined. Right. Although, let's be honest, it gets on that plate. What are you doing?

You're eating that stuff together on one forkful at a time. But they stopped one step short. All they had to do is come up with the name for mixing it together. the rice and beans, and they would be like every other Caribbean, Central, and South American nation. For sure. And, you know, we'll kind of hop around to these in more detail. But, like, for instance, in Costa Rica, a lot of time for breakfast, they'll have spotted rooster or Gallo Pinto. And, you know, everyone's a little different. They have like an onion saute with bell peppers, black beans, the rice from the day before

with some chopped cilantro, some eggs on the side. Nicaragua also has a version of that as well, which is really good, I bet. Me and Yumi went to Nicaragua, and I don't remember having this, and I feel like we really missed out. Oh, really?

Because it sounds really good. Yeah, Jamaica, of course, has their rice and peas, which is a little bit different. It's known as the Jamaican coat of arms, and we definitely had rice and peas in Jamaica. And they're talking about pigeon peas in this case. Yeah, which is the kind of,

a bean, not peas peas. Yeah. Which no one likes. No insane likes peas. I love green peas. English peas? Do you? Yeah.

I do not like them. What's funny is Momo takes after me because she will like eat her whole breakfast or her whole dinner. And if there's a pee in it and it's not mashed together with everything else, then she will just eat everything else but that pee. Do you make her own food or do you use one of those like fresh food, dog food thing? Oh, Yumi cooks for a few times a week. Yeah. So she gives her peas, but she'll mash them up. Yeah, that's good.

You know, my buddy, Justin, we talk about Justin all the time now. They put their dogs on a raw food diet, and they throw all kinds of stuff in there. They'll have, like, they have chickens, and so they'll throw the chicken eggs in there and the eggshells and just all sorts of stuff. And those dogs are as, like, healthy and slim and shiny as I've ever seen them. I'm sure. Momo's food is cooked. It's not raw, but she has a pretty great diet for sure.

Yeah, you should try the raw thing. All right, sure. I mean, we should all try the raw thing. It's really good for you. So, Chuck, one of the biggest things that I learned in this episode was that culantro and cilantro are not just different spellings for the same thing. Yeah. I did not know that.

You didn't? I think I did. All right. Well, cilantro is what, well, it's cilantro. Everybody knows cilantro. It tastes like dish soap. Coulantro is something totally different. It looks different.

It's a completely different plant. But it's used as a spice or an herb. It's got a pungent garlic-y taste. And it just doesn't taste anything like cilantro. But if you've ever had sofrido, which is a, I guess almost like a seasoning as much as it is a dish, that has cul-onter in it. Yeah, I like saffrito. I do too. Although at, what's the place? The place? The, the burrito place. Chippole. Chipotle, yeah.

Their sofrido is all tofu. So that's my really only experience with Sofrido. I'm like, I kind of like this, but not all that much. That's because it's tofu. The reason I bring up Sofrido is because in Puerto Rico, that's a big part of their rice. and beans. Yeah. Actually, rice and pigeon peas, too. They call theirs Aros can gangulis. Yeah. Delicious.

I've had that in Puerto Rico. Boy, you've been all over, haven't you? Well, I had never been to any Caribbean island in my life until like 10 years ago. And then we started, you know, once we had a daughter, we started doing some of those places. And we've ticked a few of those off the list. And they're the people that all of, I haven't had a bad experience at any of them. No, I'm sure not.

Have you been to Aruba? I have not been to Aruba yet. Strongly recommend. Oh, okay. It's great. It's a good, beautiful, beautiful beaches, really nice, slow pace. Yeah. The only thing is, you know how you said, like, all, like, every Caribbean island has its own rice dish.

They also typically have their own, like, signature, like, teaky drink. Oh, yeah, sure. And Arubas is lacking. It's not that great. It's something that they could. could really focus on and improve, but I think there's like, it's good enough. It's fine. But that was the only, I don't even call it a complaint. That was the only thing of note. No, that was the only, well, complaint I had about Aruba in the entire country. It's just really cool.

Oh, great. I'll check it out. I know we're going to Bermuda on our cruise. That'll be a first time for me. Do you mean the Bahamas or Bermuda? I mean Bermuda, baby. Same here. I've never been either. And we'll be there together. We are. It's going to be pretty cute. All right, let's talk about beans and rice because we need to talk about each of these a little bit. Beans are some of the oldest foods in the world as far as cultivating and growing something.

We have archaeological evidence that it was grown in Mesoamerica as early as 7,000 BC. And it is a legume. And that means that it is a seed grown in a pod. And that's the deal of bean farmers. you know, from the ancient times, they would select these pods that didn't split open when the beads matured

and they could like dry and store them easier because that's, I mean, eating something out of a can is great, but if you really want to make some great beans, you should get dried beans and take the time to do that that way. I have never, ever, ever done that, I don't think. Oh, man.

And if I have, I don't think they actually turned out. I think I have tried it before and it was like, how does this even work? Well, do you have an instapod or a pressure cooker? No, I'm bereft. Oh, okay. That's the best way to do it, or maybe the easiest modern way to do it.

But the old-timey people didn't have pressure cooker, so how did they do it? Well, that's why I changed my stance from best because that's probably the best way is however they did it. They probably just played the long game and stewed and boil them

over hours and hours and hours. I mean, I know you have to soak them like overnight to start even, just even to get started. But yeah, I've never, I'll have to give it a try again. That's why you never did. You're not going to start on tomorrow's meal today.

That's not the Joshua. So you were talking about the common bean, right? Yeah. That was the one from Mesoamerica. That's what we think about with, like, I guess, like, pinto beans and black beans and all that, right? Yeah. There's plenty of other kinds of beans. I mean, we mentioned pigeon peas.

I think those are African, right? Yeah. There's also black-eyed peas, which are known in Africa as, cow peas. Yeah, love black ed peas. So there's plenty of other peas that don't come from Mesoamerica. Chickpeas, lentils. Yeah, fabas. They're not from Mesoamerica. Fava beans? I love a fava. Yeah, with a nice candy. Africa is, I mean, here's the spoiler. We have Africa to think for, well, a lot, but we have Africa specifically in this episode to think mainly for beans and rice. We'll talk

about rice a little bit. We went over, obviously, rice a lot in our rice episode. But there was, there's the Asian variety and the African variety of rice. And in the 1400s, basically in 1500s, Portuguese traders introduced the Asian rice to Africa. And that basically replaced the native species because it was easier to grow. And it was, you know, you could, because it was easier to grow, it was more lucrative. But that original African rice was cultivated on what was called the Rice Coast and West Africa. Right. Apparently, we have the Senegal Gambians, which is now Senegal and Gambia.

Have you ever seen a map of Senegal in Gambia? I don't know that I've ever paid attention. I think the Gambia River kind of goes through the middle of the country, and if you put a buffer around the river, that's Gambia. It's like it stabs from the coast into Senegal. It's really interesting. But they used to be one empire, and this empire was essentially considered the cradle of West African or even all of Africa's rice. So if you felt like coming over and stealing African people from their homes to plant rice in the new world, you would visit Senegal or Gambia.

Yeah, I mean, I can't remember now what we talked about in the rice episode, but there obviously was a theory that the Spanish conquisted, are who brought rice to like the Spanish Caribbean and Mexico. Right. But, you know, there is an argument that because enslaved Africans were brought over in such great numbers, that they brought the culture of it. Because apparently the conquistadors were Spanish Catholics in the 16th century who thought rice was like pagan food of Muslim Moors. So while they might have technically brought rice, they didn't have the conquistadors. they didn't have the culture of like knowing about rice and knowing how to grow it and how to best eat it that they had in West Africa. So in Mexico, when West Africans arrived there as slave labor, they brought their rice with them and probably first planted rice in Mexico.

Right, exactly. I thought that was pretty interesting. Yeah, for sure. And the original sort of, I guess, ancestor you would call it of African beans and rice dishes is from, Senegal, and it's called Chibu Niebe, and that is African rice and cow peas that were native to West Africa there, and it's considered a sacred dish over there. Yes, and cow peas, remember, I said, are black-eyed peas. So this is like black-eyed peas in rice. This is considered, like, at least the earliest kind of documented rice and beans dish that anyone's been able to trace back to West Africa.

Yeah. And there's a direct line between that and Hopin' John, which is essentially the same thing. You just add a pound of bacon when you cook it and change the name. Yeah. And I think they're both generally served or traditionally served with, oh, geez, why am I blanking now? The green collars. Collar greens. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

I forgot about that part. I love collard greens, but have you ever tried to make them? I actually make a really good collard green. Oh, okay. I bet it's good. But the problem is you got to buy like, you got to get like three grocery carts full of them to make a meal for a family.

Yeah, I just throw it away. Oh, no. They cook down. No, you have to have a really good-sized stock pot. Yeah. Another thing you can do is wilt it a little bit first, so you don't need as big of a stock pot. Oh, that's good idea.

Look at you. The biggest pain is to wash it off. Yeah. Because there's so much of it. washing all the grid off. You just can't find collards unless they're bagged and already washed. Yeah. If you're going with fresh, you got to wash them off, and it's a pain.

Yeah, totally. But I don't like pork. I don't eat a pig, if I ever can help it. Yeah, yeah. Again, they're really smart and I feel terrible. Turkeys are not smart, and I have no problem eating them. And so I would use, like, a smoked turkey wing rather than a ham hawk. Oh, I bet that's great.

It's the same thing. It's really good. A little bit of rice. wine vinegar in there? Yeah. And, like, it's essentially those two ingredients are about it. Yeah, that's, you know, I'm not a big vinegar guy, but that's where, that's where I like vinegar in my colors.

That's so good with it. Yep. And, of course, that's a southern thing, but also, like we said, comes from Senegal originally, in spirit at least. The, we talked about in the rice episode, the, Emily just walked by and is waving at me, and she never does that. Hey. Josh says, hello.

She didn't wait back. No. I'm just kidding. She didn't hear me. In the American South, you know, rice was a huge cash crop before cotton and tobacco came along. And, of course, in Carolina, because recently, it was probably the rice episode where we talked about the Carolina gold rice. Yeah. Carolina plantations were really seeking out the synagambians to, you know, to lead the rice planting effort there.

And so that's where they concentrated their efforts as far as their brutal slave trade went. Yeah, that was a real distinction between the slave trade that came later when it was a focus on sugar cane and cotton. Right. Is when you purchased a Senegalian slave, you were purchasing their knowledge as well as their labor to help plant low country rice in the Carolinas. Yeah. Which, you know, that's one of the other things. too is these same West African early slaves introduced a lot of root vegetables to America as well because they were, in some cases, a lot of cases I would imagine, able to grow their own food

and so they would grow stuff from home like yams and things like that. Yeah, I mean, well, on slave ships, they would bring over their food to obviously sustain them for that trip. And then once they, you know, reached wherever their destination was, which was, you know, it was a huge diaspora, obviously, they would plant that stuff because that's what they like to eat. And before you know it, if they were working like in like the plantation homes and serving the plantation owners, they would serve them those meals. And that's how it spread.

It's a, you know, it's a pretty ugly past that we have to acknowledge. You know, I was thinking about that. I don't know if this is going to end up in the episode, but there's such a fine line between just talking about stuff like this, matter-of-factly, because all of this stuff did happen. I know. While also acknowledging just the horror that was like the basis of it or going on in the background without hitting everybody over the head

and detracting from what you're trying to say. No, I'm with you, man. It's an uncomfortable topic every time. but we can't do episodes on things like so much that we owe to Africa and like we certainly not going to whitewash it. No, no, no. It's just one of those things. Yeah, no, I don't, I don't mean to suggest.

No, no, no. Let's just stop talking about that part. We weren't. I knew you weren't suggesting that, obviously. No, no. But one thing that did kind of stand out to me was so the first, you mentioned, like, if you worked in like the plantation house, you might serve something from home. That's where Hoppin John came from, quite clearly, from the Chibu Nayibay to Hopin John,

actually went through a South Carolina Charleston aristocrat named Sarah Rutledge, who anonymously wrote an 1847 cookbook. That was the first printed recipe for Hopin' John. And so it's quite clear that her enslaved staff was like, let me make you something from my homeland. And she was like, this is crazy good. But that kind of brought me into that actual dining room where there are people sitting there.

And I'm sure Sarah Rutledge was like, you're never going to guess what my, you know, Tanya has made for us as a special treat showing off to her guests, what her enslaved servant has come up with. And just think about sitting at that table and being served by somebody who you know is not allowed to leave. And if they try to leave, they will be murdered, and the person who murdered them is not going to be arrested or tried or convicted, and that's just how things are.

Yeah. Really think about, like, sitting at that table. Isn't that nuts? I know. It's hard to wrap your head around, and I wonder if they're, like, existing diaries from people of the time that had any new, like, if any of them felt bad about this stuff. I wondered that, too, because, yes, you know, a lot of times people are like, well, they were just of their time. And that certainly does explain a lot of behavior. Like, that's just how society was.

So there were plenty of people who probably didn't give much thought to it. Right. There is no way there wasn't also plenty of people. And I'm sure, including people in the South who are like, this is messed up. And maybe they didn't do anything about it or say anything about it. Yeah. Surely there were. No, you'd like to think so, you know.

Yeah. All right. Let's take a break and regather. It's an interesting thought experiment. And we'll come back and get back to beans and rice right after this. There's no shortcut for saving time. But saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save.

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You came along. Yeah, well, we were work pals. All right, we're back with beans and rice. We were talking about, obviously, the spread of beans and rice through the African slave trade. That is certainly the case in Louisiana and New Orleans, another state here in the United States, the southern United States, where African beans and rice dishes came over. and in their case that, like you mentioned earlier, the classic red beans and rice, that actually started out in Haiti,

where enslaved Africans worked on sugar cane and coffee plantations there owned by French colonists. And in that case, they cooked up pigeon peas and rice in a dish, and you're going to have to say this because it's French. Riz et poise rouguge. Oh, come on. Play along. Rizet-po-roge.

Poir Rouge. Yeah, there you go. And that's the original New Orleans, red beans and rice, came from Africans via Haiti. Is that what that means? Well, I mean, that's the lineage. The thing I didn't know about this,

this is my favorite, red beans and rice, I think, is so great. I mean, just because of the sausage taste to it. Yeah. The flavor, right? But one thing I didn't know about it is so, apparently Monday is the traditional day to eat red beans and rice. And Monday was also wash day back in the antebellum era of New Orleans.

So the women, the washer women who were, while doing the laundry on Mondays, would use the same coals, not the same water, but the same coals to simmer rice and beans later on and they would throw in leftover ham from the day before Sunday's dinner and you have red beans and rice on wash day. Yeah. And apparently that's still a tradition. I think schools in New Orleans still serve red bees and rice on Mondays. That's pretty great.

Yeah. We can concentrate on a few countries now because, again, I mean, we can talk about dozens of of countries that have these dishes. But about half of the 12 million enslaved Africans. that came over during the Atlantic slave trade landed in Brazil. So we're going to talk a little bit about Brazil, Cuba and Jamaica specifically. And today Brazil has maybe, I mean, it's hard to pit these against each other, but they may have the strongest beans and rice culture in the Americas

because they are like every lunch and dinner, like we should have beans and rice. Yeah, which I mean, that makes sense. They're beans and rice dish is called, my portion. Portuguese is a little rusty, so I'm going to say feyoada. Actually, look this one up. Oh, let's hear it. How close was it? There's a joie sound, so it's apparently fejoada.

Yeah. All right. Sorry. Feijuada. Yeah, there you go. Feijua de vivre. That is their rice and beans dish, and just like risé poir-re rouge. There's a definite, like, connection to the slavery area

of Brazil as well. Yeah, for sure, because they would do, like they did in the American South, they would take what were called like the undesirable cuts of meat that were cast off by the plantation owners and like pig, like pork cheek and pig's feet and hamhawks and stuff like that, jowls. And they would use that stuff. And so the best way to usually to cook that kind of thing is a very slow-cooked stew. And that's what Fezrejua is.

So they could, you know, simmer that thing all day long while they were, you know, toiling and working. And they eat that with collard greens. Actually, that may be what I was thinking earlier. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Still. I mean, we can rewrite history with collard green. What about Cuba? So you mentioned how the Catholic Spanish considered rice

a pagan Moorish dish or food. That division is actually reflected in Cuba's rice dish. Well, it depends. I think the west side of Cuba

eats this. It's called Moros E. Christianos, more like, moors or Muslims and Christians, and it's black beans and rice, white rice. And then the other side of the island

eats Congri, which is red beans and rice. That's right. And apparently it's a metaphor for modern Cuba as well. Did I say Cuba? Modern Cuba. It's like people who say Washington. Yeah. where you have, you know, a sort of fairly equal divide of white people and black people in Cuba

and about, I think, as high as 65 percent of Cubans descended from enslaved Africans because the indigenous Taino people, that was the population of Cuba before the Spanish colonizers came along and basically killed them off, not completely, but decimated them. Right. The Congri, though, the red beans and rice, that also probably came from Haiti, just like red beans and rice came to New Orleans. Yeah. Through the, after the Haitian revolution, when a bunch of former slaves were like, let's start traveling. Yeah. And, you know, rice and beans is a big deal in Cuba because of the various times over the years that, or decades, rather, that they've been in food crisis because of initially, like the collapse of the Soviet Union. And then, you know, still ongoing U.S. trade embargoes that have left Cuba in a bad state.

So rice and beans apparently is sort of a symbol of their determination as a people to get by. Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool. Yeah. And then we can't not talk about Jamaica. Jamaica's its own thing as far as rice and beans go. Not only do they call their beans peas, because remember, they're pigeon peas. Yeah. They cook theirs like way differently from everybody else.

They simmer it in coconut milk. Huge difference. Love it. They cook the rice and the beans together in one pot rather than cooking them separately and bringing them together on the plate. They also use different seasoning. So with red beans and rice, it starts with the Holy Trinity, celery, onions, and green bell pepper, right?

Jamaican Holy Trinity is thyme, garlic, and scalyons. which I'm fine with both of those trinities. Sure. And then they also spice theirs up, literally with all spice, but also with Scotch Bonnet peppers, which no human has any business going anywhere near. Yeah, those are pretty spicy. And they, that's, I mean, like this is its own dish,

but you said it before it was the Jamaican coat of arms. It's just so common that you just have that, like, every meal from what I understand. Yeah, for sure. I had a, almost every year here in one of the neighborhoods, I remember hoods near me in Kirkwood. They have the Kirkwood Spring Fling, and then they have the chicken wing contest, the wing fling. And my buddy Matt, that lives near us,

who's the stuff you should know guy, has got me to be one of the quote-unquote celebrity judges most years. Oh, yeah. And this year, I had a Scotch bonnet wing that was the hottest thing I've ever put in my mouth. Yeah. By far. And that's not even close to, like, the hottest pepper.

I know. It was unbelievably hot. it took 20 minutes for me to even feel normal again. I'm sure. It was bad. They're pretty, though. That's the thing. That's how they get you.

You're like, wow, that's a pretty pepper. I mean, this chicken wing was color orange I've never seen before. Man, forget that. Yeah. I would have been like, well, I'm not the celebrity judge anymore, I guess. Should we take another break? Yeah. All right.

All right. We'll be right back with why beans and rice is popular right after this. There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simply. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellairdirect.com. Hey, this is Hayes Davenport. And Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook.

Every episode we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers. The show is famously super accessible so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on. We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller. The definition of what is a movie has kind of changed anywhere too, right? What do you think it is now? It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology.

Danny McBride. He loves it. Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on, you make your own. That's great. I call him Terro Reed. It's a good name. They're all named after cast members of American Pie.

Yeah. Oh, gotcha. I call, I don't, I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leachie Sobiesky. Yeah. I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still like that. I haven't looked it up. She was prominent around the same time. Then Mary Steenberg.

Why are you guys talking to me? I'm worried. I'm worried. Why are you talking so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play game? I just really. I get it. I'm trying to set you up for success here. Listen to Hollywood Handbook on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Our town is small taters by most standards, right? But to the people who grew up here, it's everything. What happens when a quiet Tennessee town becomes the front line in a battle over the future of America? Developers with right-wing ties have purchased hundreds of acres of land in the area. The first thing you see when it pops up is pioneers in Appalachia. But they weren't just planning houses. We need cities on a shining hill that exemplify and embody the Christian way of life. Stop right there. Is that normal?

A podcast about what happens when a small town becomes the site of a social experience. experiment. God need men to rule. Great. And decides to fight back. Do not use my hard work to sell your bull. They're not just opposing what's being planned for here. Our hometown is not a test to. They feel like they're standing in opposition to an entire administration. Guess you didn't move in on a bunch of dumb hillbillies now, did you? Listen to our town on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You came along and it was like, uh yeah, well, we were work pals. So, Chuck, we've been focusing mainly on the Caribbean, Latin America, and Africa as far as, like, rice dishes go, right? Yeah.

And a little bit of the United States, more the southern area. Sure. There's, like, rice and bean dishes are, like, so universally eaten by traditional cultures around the world that there's actually an anthropologist named Sidney Mintz who's like, I think this is actually one of the oldest dishes. humans make and that it's been sustaining cultures around the world for thousands and thousands of years. Yeah, he's got his own theory. It's called the core fringe legume pattern. And it's those three things. He basically says that in every culture and their diet, they have a core grain involved. And as you can tell from our rice episode, in this one, like a lot of the time it's rice. It can be, you know, other things depending on where you are, but rice is definitely one of the big ones.

And then you have a legume to complement that grain, in this case beans or peas. And then you've got the fringe, right? The fringe, this is fringe as in Surrey with the fringe on top, like a decoration, not a peripheral, right? Yeah. It's the sauces, it's the seasonings, the herbs and spices that make each rice or grain and bean dish unique to a specific group or region. Yeah, and he basically is like, this is this combination of these three things.

He calls it, quote, the basic building blocks of world cuisine. And it's a very just super ancient thing that's been around all over the world forever. Mm-hmm. I found that interesting, that he makes a point, though, it doesn't have to be rice. I think even though half of the world gets there,

like eats rice, every day. Yeah. But there is, like, other kinds of grains as well. Like, have you ever had Ethiopian food? Yeah. It's been a while. They have, like, these kind of pancake-like breads.

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's like a very flat bread, and you put the food basically into that and make, like, a little toastata or burrito or something out of it, essentially. Or you can use it to sop stuff up. Yeah. But, like, that's their main grain. Like, I don't think you have them. in Ethiopia without that bread.

Do you know what it's called? Ingera? Injera? I think so. That sounds good. I need to eat some Ethiopian food. It's been a while for me, but every time I've had it, I loved it. Yeah.

And, I mean, Ethiopia's is one place of many. There's a lot of other places that also, that do use rice as the core grain that are nowhere near Latin America. Middle East, I believe in Persia, they have a ton of different beans and rice dishes. India has something called Rajma Chawal, which, I mean, it doesn't matter what it is. If it's Indian food, I'll eat it and love it. But they have, Rajma Chawalwal would not exist without the New World because they make it with red kidney beans and tomatoes, both of which come from the New World. And then they india it up with basmati rice.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, Indian food is not something I would associate with red kidney beans, so I'll have to try to seek that out. For sure. And then Turkey has something, it's a staple called Kuru, Fasuli, V. Pelav. And it's a rice pilaf with white bean stew. It sounds good, too. I love white beans. Like a white bean chili?

Yeah. But Sydney Mintz seems to be on to something, though, you know? Like rice and beans in particular seem to be like all over the place. And anytime something's like that nearly universal, it's probably pretty old. Yeah, and probably fairly healthy because if ancient cultures are eating stuff for thousands of years, it's probably not, you know, junk food. Right. And you're probably heard, like, you know, if you eat rice and beans together, it's a complete protein because they complement one another and filling in the blanks of what, like, the key amino acids that the other is missing. And the amino acids are the building blocks of protein.

And it's not like, that's not 100% true, but it's kind of true. I've seen both. I've seen that, yeah, essentially it is a complete protein if you put them both together. And eat enough. I feel like, yes, that's the key. I think if you really want to nitpick, you can be like, well, a complete protein has 100% of all of the essential amino acids that you need. They're essential because your body doesn't make them an abundant enough supply so that we have to get them from external sources, i.e. food. And I think there's nine of them.

Yeah, there's nine of them. If you eat a steak or some tuna or like a protein like that, bam, you're covered. And it doesn't take very much. The critique of rice and beans as a complete protein is, yes, if you put them together, they contain enough of everything that if you eat enough rice and beans, you'll have a complete protein. I think the world generally is like, no, it's a complete protein. protein, stop being pedantic puts?

Yeah, if you have a cup of cooked pentos at six ounces, that's about 50% of most amino acids, but 27% of one called methionine. So that's what's missing on the bean side. A cup of cooked white rice provides about 10 to 20% of most of those amino acids and 14% of the methionine. But when you eat them together and you eat enough, and I think they say, the ideal ratio is about 80% rice, dry protein to 20% bean. It's basically a complete protein.

You just have to eat a little more, but low-carb people are like, why would you do that when you can have a three-ounce steak and get all you need? Yeah. And the beans and rice people are like, why would you kill an animal when you can eat rice and beans? That's a good point. Did you ever eat at the grit in Athens before it closed? Yeah.

The vegetarian restaurant over Prince Avenue, off downtown? It was not my place, but I ate there before. I mean, I don't think you could live in Athens at that time and not eat there. Yeah, I think Michael Stipe might have been an owner at one point or co-owner, or maybe an investor. But they, if you were a poor college student, which was like, you know, most of the people I knew and me and myself could go to the grit and get, it was called the staple. And it was just white rice and beans with some spices. And it was like three bucks or something. And we would eat that a lot.

it was a good way to get a fairly healthy lunch in your body as a college student for not much. Whenever I think of rice and beans, I think of this one man, I'm pretty sure he was a taxi driver, and he was eating in a Cuban restaurant in New York, Upper East Side, where Yumi's and my friend Molly lives. And it was just around the corner from Molly's house where we were staying, and this guy was winter. And he just had this bowl of rice and beans. And he was eating it. He could have been, he was middle-aged. He could have been a little kid.

He could have been an old man. The way he was eating it, he was enjoying it. But it was so, like, clearly the, the consuming that dish was so ingrained in this man that, like, it was its own thing. Like, you could have put anybody else in front of that bowl, like me eating it. I would not have looked. It wouldn't have been fluid. It wouldn't have been. Oh, interesting.

It just looks so natural the way this man was eating it. And then at the same time, you could see him being like nourished by it. It was just cool. It drove home to me like just how big a deal rice and beans are to a lot of the cultures where they are a big deal. It was neat. Oh, that's cool. I love that. Yeah, I know what you mean, though, not even with rice and beans.

But when you see someone from the culture eating the thing that kind of defines and sustains their culture, it's different the way it goes down and the way it looks. Yeah. It's like me and fried chicken. Right. I'm trying to think of what I eat like that. Maybe a donut? Yeah. Probably donuts.

Someone from another country telling a story about visiting America and seeing this guy eat fried chicken and his friend was eating donuts and is sustaining them. They were being nourished. Yeah. You can be nourished by beans, though. Rice is fine depending on the kind of rice. Like the problem with white rice is it has a high glycemic index, which I'm sure we talked about in the rice episode. But that basically means it jacks your insulin up while you're digesting. What's cool is that when you eat beans with white rice, the beans have such a low glycemic index that it washes out a lot of the white rice's glycemic index, removes it.

So that's pretty cool. And then beans, of course, are just on their own nutritious. One of the big things is that they have lots of fiber, which is the component of beans that make them the magical fruit. Apparently, you get more than half of your daily fiber from one cup of pinto beans. Yeah, that's a lot. They lower your LDL cholesterol, which is the bad cholesterol. They're going to improve your gut health. If you have a risk of, well, I guess everyone has some risk of colorectal cancer. It's getting worse, too. Yeah, it's going to decrease that risk. And what else? There's something about the, like, it fills you up, right? Yeah. You are satiated by two different hormones that are triggered by eating beans, which is cool. And you, you, you basically digest your food a little slower, so you feel fuller longer. Yeah.

Like last night. They really are magical. Not in prep for this, because I didn't even bother making beans. We just been traveling a lot. We have no food here, and I didn't know what to eat, and I didn't feel like ordering delivery food because I hate doing that. So I opened up a can of refried black beans, and I just cook those and put some spices in them and threw some cheese on top and ate a bowl of refried beans.

Nice. It was delicious. I farted all night long. That's awesome. It was great. You may eat three fried beans a surprising amount, and she does not fart. Well, that's because Yumi is perfect, and I'm not. Oh, dude, I'm right there with you.

Like, I've been holding it in from lunch the whole time we've been recording. She's a real lady. That's right. You got anything else about beans, rice, rice and beans? Nothing else. I think I'm going to go on a rice and beans tear. How about this, though? I would love if people know a great recipe for that traditional Mexican rice, send it in.

Oh, good idea. It is so good. I swear to God, there's lard in it. Probably so, and it takes some time. You know, it's not the kind of thing you can just whip up in a second. Okay, sure. It depends if you're a Cuban taxi driver in New York. I'll bet you can whip it up in a second.

Yeah, for sure. This is a weird episode, Chuck. All right, I'll take that. All right. Well, since Chuck's taken weird, that means he just unlocked listener mail. This was from our episode on Postpartum Depression that just came out in real time. Hey, guys, I just listened to your PPD app. I was inspired to write in.

I want to thank you for shining a light on this extremely difficult subject, specifically the parts in which you acknowledge the uncomfortable intrusive thoughts that some moms might experience. A first time mom of a four-month-old and had been diagnosed with PPD, And I'm getting all the treatments you outlined in your episode, but it's still a lonely journey. And your episode is a very succinct, accessible way to inform people that support me in my life about what I'm experiencing. So as a woman, I'm always second-guessing my feelings even when it comes to my PPD symptoms. But the stats that you shared in the episode remind me that this is very real, and I'm not just being dramatic. So as two cis men, you did a great job and keep doing good work.

And that is Rachel from Portland, Oregon. Nice. Thank you very much, Rachel, for writing in to tell us that because that's exactly why we did that episode, you know? Yeah, and you're in our thoughts. I know that's a very lonely place to be. Yeah. Well, well said, Chuck. Hopefully, listening to that episode made people who are going through PPD feel a little less lonely. Yeah. If you are going through PPD or you're doing something that has something to do with one of our episodes, or like Chuck said, you have a good recipe for Mexican. can rice, we want to hear from you. Even if you don't have anything like that to say, that's fine, email us.

Send it off to Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts, My Heart Radio, visit the Iheart Radio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. On Solita, we share the messy reality of traveling alone as a woman. Your duolingo is not going to come back to you when a man is inside of you. No. I'm Julie Pinheiro, and I travel by myself because it's a rare space where I can say yes without asking anyone else first.

I'm on a mission to reclaim the word Solita, trading the pity for possibility. Listen to Solita on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nick Tutero. You probably know me from NYPD Blue, the longest yard, or Spike Lease Black Klansman. And on my new podcast, delivering happiness with Nick Totoro, I deliver pizza. to a new guest. I've shared a slice with everyone from Seth Rollins. What are you doing my belt?

To Bill Burr. I don't think I've ever met somebody so exactly out of their mind as I am. And now we even have more great guests coming up, including the great John Tuturo. It's called Happiness. Delivering Happiness. And many, many more. Open your free high heart radio app. Search Delivering Happiness with Nick Tutorough.

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