Romano beans: the flat Italian pod that stays meaty after cooking

Romano beans are the flat, wide Italian pole beans, broader than a Blue Lake and meatier in the bite, that cook to tenderness without going stringy. King Quality Produce carries two cuts: long pods every month of the year and short pods during the summer, both packed in 13 lb boxes. Here is what they are, how the cuts differ, how to receive and store them, and the nutrition behind them.

What a Romano bean is

Romano beans go by several names: Italian green beans, Italian flat beans, Roma beans. The UC Master Gardener program in Napa County describes them as "large, flat beans, much broader than the familiar Blue Lakes or Kentucky Wonders," available in green, yellow and purple types and grown on both pole and bush plants⁴. In Napa's two-year trial, pole types yielded more per plant and per space allotted than bush types and were easier to pick, and the green pole varieties were the flavor favorites both years⁴. That is the type KQP buys.

Like all snap beans, they are harvested while the pod is fleshy and the seeds are small and green². The difference is the pod: wide, flat and thick-walled, so it stands up to long braising instead of collapsing like a thin round bean. Young pods are the tender ones. Once the seeds bulge, the pod turns tough, and although the common varieties are sold as stringless, pods left too long on the vine develop strings⁴.

Long and short: two cuts, two seasons

We carry Romanos in two cuts. Long pods are available every month of the year; short pods come in during the summer. Both are packed 13 lb to the box, and the difference is pod length, not grade or variety. Long pods suit kitchens that cut to order, braise whole or plate long; short pods are closer to a conventional green bean and go straight into sautés and salads. Our growers in Mexico, the American Southwest and California are how we keep the long cut moving through the winter.

The federal standard acknowledges the difference. The USDA grade standard for fresh snap beans covers snap, pole and wax types used whole³, and it gives pole types their own length rule: a broken bean counts as damage if the remaining piece is shorter than 3-1/2 inches, or shorter than 5-1/2 inches for pole types³. A pole bean like a Romano is supposed to be long.

Buying and receiving

USDA grades for fresh snap beans are U.S. Fancy, U.S. No. 1 and U.S. No. 2, effective July 5, 1990³. Fancy beans are of reasonable and fairly uniform size, well formed, bright, clean, fresh, young and tender, firm, and free from soft rot and from damage; No. 1 relaxes that to fairly well formed, fairly bright and fairly young and tender; No. 2 beans are fairly fresh, firm and not overmature, free from soft rot and serious damage³. Tolerances run 10 percent off-grade by weight for Fancy, 13 percent for No. 1 and 15 percent for No. 2, in every case with no more than 1 percent soft rot³. "Firm" means not wilted or flabby; "fairly well formed" means not badly crooked, curled or twisted for the variety; and there are no sieve sizes or size classes in the fresh standard³.

On receiving, the UC Davis checklist is the one to use: pods should be well formed, straight for the type, bright in color, fresh-looking, tender but firm, and should snap easily when bent; leaves, stems, broken beans, blossom remains and insect damage should be absent². For Romanos, read the seed line: a flat pod swelling at each seed is overmature and will be fibrous. Pods should be an even green with no rusty-brown flecking, which is the signature of chilling injury, and no translucent, water-soaked patches, which come from rough handling and turn to decay².

• Flat, even pods with no bulging seeds
• Snaps clean when bent
• No rusty brown spots or translucent patches
• Dry pods and a dry box; no free moisture

Storage and shelf life

Snap beans want 41 to 45°F and 95 to 100 percent relative humidity, which gives 8 to 12 days of shelf life². They breathe hard: respiration runs about 17 ml of CO2 per kilogram per hour at 41°F and 65 at 68°F², nearly four times as fast, so an afternoon on a warm dock costs a real share of shelf life. Water loss is the other clock. About 5 percent weight loss shows as shriveling and limpness, and beans are unmarketable at 10 to 12 percent². Immature beans lose water faster than mature ones².

Colder is not better. Below 41°F, chilling injury sets in: a general opaque discoloration after more than five or six days, sometimes surface pitting, and most commonly discrete rusty-brown spots, which can appear even at 41 to 45°F after seven or eight days and are highly susceptible to fungal attack². Symptoms show in about 2 days at 34°F, 4 days at 36°F, or 8 to 10 days at 41°F, and not at all at 50°F². Freezing starts at 30.7°F². Keep Romanos out of the coldest corner of the walk-in and away from ethylene: concentrations above 0.1 ppm cut shelf life by 30 to 50 percent at 41°F and bleach the green². Decay, usually Pythium, Rhizopus or Sclerotinia, follows chill damage or free moisture², so never store a wet box.

Nutrition

USDA FoodData Central does not list Romano beans separately; its reference entry for raw green snap beans is the one to use¹. Per 100 g raw: 31 calories, 90.3 g water, 6.97 g carbohydrate, 2.7 g fiber, 1.83 g protein and 0.22 g fat¹. The pods carry 43 µg vitamin K, 12.2 mg vitamin C, 33 µg folate, 211 mg potassium, 37 mg calcium, 1.03 mg iron and 6 mg sodium, along with 640 µg lutein and zeaxanthin and 379 µg beta-carotene¹.

Vitamin K is the headline. The NIH Office of Dietary Supplements sets the adequate intake at 120 µg a day for men and 90 µg for women, and describes vitamin K as a coenzyme for the proteins involved in blood clotting and bone metabolism⁵. A 100 g portion of Romanos supplies roughly a third to a half of that, with 2.7 g of fiber and only 6 mg of sodium¹.

In the kitchen

Romanos are the braising bean. Italian kitchens in Los Angeles stew them with tomato, garlic and olive oil until they go silky, and the wide pod takes that treatment without falling apart. Greek fasolakia and the Armenian and Lebanese green-bean stews of Glendale and the Valley use the same flat bean for the same reason. Blanched and shocked, the pods stay bright and firm for salads and antipasto; cut on the bias, they sauté in minutes. Long pods plate whole for a composed vegetable course; short summer pods are for family-style sides and for markets whose customers expect a bean that fits the pan.

For produce departments, Romanos sell on the difference. They look nothing like the bagged round bean, and a display next to the Blue Lakes moves both. Keep the display cold and dry and turn the box within the week. A Romano showing its seed outline is still good for a braise, but no longer a salad bean.

Ordering

Long-pod Romanos are in every week of the year and short pods join them in summer, both in 13 lb boxes. Call the office at (213) 627-7181 for this week's counts.