Lentil giant

The cup of soup sits before you, hardly larger than your average coffee mug.

A dozen or so semitransparent onions, barely visible, float atop the murky broth. The scent of some spice – cinnamon? ginger? cumin? – fills the air.

But the treasure lies beneath. It fills your spoon with scores of flying-saucer-shaped morsels, their brown tones ranging from the dark of Hershey’s semi-sweet chocolate to the lighter tones of a Cadbury milk bar.

Sounds swirl around this Middle Eastern eatery on Monroe Street called Azar’s. Other diners talk, drink, eat.

What they say, what they do, barely registers.

Attention must be paid.

To the lentil.

Fact: “At Qalat Jarmo, Iraq, archaeologists have found lentils nearly 9,000 years old.” – www.hungrymonster.com.

But why … the lentil?

Easy answer there: The Palouse – that great area of rich farm soil south of Spokane, between Spangle and the Snake River – is often referred to as “the pea and lentil capital of the world.”

And you thought that those rolling hills were just one big heap of wheat.

Until a few years ago, 90 percent of the lentils grown in the United States came from Washington and Idaho. Even now, with more states in the Midwest growing lentils, the number is still around 60 percent.

And, of course, Pullman is the site of the annual National Lentil Festival.

“It’s part of what we are here,” Michelle Poesy says.

Poesy is executive director of the festival, a gathering that has been held every summer since 1989. This year’s two-day festival kicks off in downtown Pullman at 5 p.m. Friday.

Past festivals have attracted as many as 20,000 visitors. Saturday’s events include a lentil pancake feed (8 to 11 a.m.), a parade (11 a.m.), a lentil cook-off (noon to 1 p.m.) and coronation of the Little Lentil King and Queen (2 p.m.).

But nothing beats the festival’s opening gift to those who show up Friday.

“The big attraction,” Poesy says, “is our really big bowl, which is 5 feet tall and 7 feet across.”

Big bowl? “It’s a big bowl of lentil chili,” Poesy says, “and we give it away for free.”

Think people don’t like to eat lentils? Last year, Poesy says, “Almost 5,000 people come through the line.”

Quote: “And Esau said to Jacob, I beg of you, let me have some of that red lentil stew to eat, for I am faint and famished!” – Genesis 25:30.

So, what is a lentil anyway?

According to the Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition (2001), a lentil is a “leguminous Old World annual plant (Lens culinaris) with whitish or pale blue flowers. Its pods contain two greenish-brown or dark-colored seeds, also called lentils, which when fully ripe are ground into meal or used in soups and stews.”

Right. Look, lentils are legumes, just as beans, peas and garbanzo beans (or chickpeas) are. And there are more kinds of them than you might think, carrying such names as Brewer, Crimson, Pardina and Red Chief.

“It’s hard to nail down how many exact varieties there are,” says Tim McGreevy, executive director of the trade association U.S.A. Dry Pea and Lentil Council. “In terms of traded varieties, there are probably 15 major varieties that are traded in the world.”

Lentils may have come originally from plants that grew wild in the Middle East, Turkey and India. Wherever they first sprouted, though, lentils provided benefits both for farmers and consumers that continue to this day.

For farmers, the lentil is a good crop to rotate with wheat. Not only does crop rotation help with weed and disease control, says Pullman research geneticist Fred Muhlbauer, but lentils put nitrogen back in the soil.

That way, Muhlbauer says, “Farmers don’t have to apply heavy amounts of fertilizer to get a good crop.”

As for the consumer, well, that’s where things get interesting.

Lentil tongue-twister: Lilly Ladled Little Letty’s Lentil Soup. – www.kidspot.org.

McGreevy says there are five important things that everyone should know about lentils:

1, “Lentils are one of the most popular legumes in the world.”

They fill restaurant menus in India (1 billion pop.), the 18 countries of the Middle East (326 million) and Turkey (69 million) – among others.

2, “They don’t have a particularly strong taste, so they can be adapted for a lot of different dishes, whether you’re talking about hot dishes or mild dishes, Mexican cuisine or Mediterranean cuisine and the flavors and spices that come with that. They absorb those spices and give a rich and full body to the food.”

In reviewing a Manhattan restaurant, New York Times writer Eric Asimov wrote this in 2002: “I loved a stew of lentils and salt pork topped with four kinds of sausage ($17); it was just the thing on a blustery winter night.”

3, “When you think of legumes, people think of dry beans, which means that you have to soak them overnight. But with lentils, especially with lentils from this region of the country, they cook in 30 minutes.”

In his recipe for Lentil Soup with Curry Crema and Lentil Crackers, chef Emeril Legasse instructs, “Add the lentils and chicken stock and bring to a boil … cover the pot and reduce the heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are very tender, about 30 to 35 minutes.”

4, “They have the highest natural folate (folic acid) levels of any food save liver.”

According to research done at Washington University in St. Louis, low folate levels in women are a leading cause of birth defects. For adults, folate deficiency can lead to cancer and cardiovascular disease.

5, “In nutritional value of food, lentils are just darn near perfect. The lentil is very high in protein. And mixed with rice or wheat, it becomes a complete protein. So it becomes a meat substitute in areas where either they’re vegetarian or they can’t afford the meat. For people who are serious about dieting, lentils are a fantastic food.”

Quote: “I was down having dinner at the Davenport on Monday night, and this guy behind me was having a lentil and sausage bowl of soup and, man, this guy was just crawling all over himself.” – Pete Johnstone, Spokane Seed Company.

Here’s how legend has lentils arriving at the Palouse.

Around 1916 (the date varies), a Farmington, Wash., man named Jacob John “J.J.” Wagner first planted a field with lentil seeds. The seeds had come originally from a Seventh-day Adventist minister named Schultz, who had brought them from Europe.

Wagner became known as “the Lentil King” first by developing and then exploiting an ongoing business relationship with the Seventh-day Adventists community, which is traditionally vegetarian. And he refused to sell his seeds for fear that too many growers would saturate the market.

Moscow’s Washburn-Wilson Seed Company eventually got hold of some seeds, and by 1937 lentils were being grown commercially.

In 1948, lentils plantings took up 3,000 acres of the Palouse. By 1995, that number had grown to 190,000

Quote: “When poor, he would devour anything; now he is rich, he no longer cares for lentils.” – Aristophanes, “Plutus.”

These days, lentil production is down in the Palouse. In 2003, Washington and Idaho farmers planted 155,794 acres of lentils.

But overall, U.S. production is up – from 156,652 acres in 1998 to 235,654 in 2003.

McGreevy is convinced that Palouse lentil production will rebound. The environmental advantages – weed and disease control, added nitrogen – plus subsidies provided by the 2002 Farm Bill will ensure it happening.

In any event, some Palouse farmers are finding new ways to market their crops. Tawny Nelson of Troy, Idaho, for example, runs Nelson Family Farms with her husband Jeff and their four children. She’s trying to give lentils a new image by introducing buyers to varieties other than the standard U.S. Regular (or Brewer), the variety usually found in grocery stores. She’s especially high on the Beluga, the Red Chief and the Pardina.

“Lentils have kind of gotten this bad rap, I think, for being this brown, mushy, ugly soup,” Nelson says. “A lot of people use lentils instead of ground hamburger in, like, tacos and casseroles and chili and all kinds of things. With these other three lentils, they hold their shape and don’t turn to mush.”

Nelson says that she employs as many as 15 workers, six at a time. Two years ago she was packaging lentils on her kitchen table.

She’s surprised both at how fast her business has grown and that no one else had thought of it. When she first went to the Lentil Festival, she says, “There was all kinds of lentil food there, but not one person was actually selling lentils. I was the only person selling packages of lentils, which I thought, ‘How crazy is this?’

“People are realizing, with just a little education, that these are a protein, very good for diabetics, fast-cooking, low-fat, wonderful product,” she says. “We just need to keep educating people. As farmers, we need to.”

Song lyrics: “Men with faces that can cause ya/To have a temporary nausea/Will demand a raving beauty and nothing less/When a girl’s incidentals/Are no bigger than two lentils/Well, to me that doesn’t spell success.” – Jule Styne/Bob Merrill, “If a Girl Isn’t Funny,” from “Funny Girl.”

Suddenly, you’re back in Azar’s. You’re hungry, and your soup beckons.

So you lift the spoon to your lips.

You open your mouth.

And you swallow a big bit of Palouse history.

Delicious.