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Rancho gordo presents cassoulet a french obsession
Rancho Gordo is a specialty producer of heirloom beans, based in Napa Valley, California.
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The company was founded and is run by Steve Sando, a former web designer, Jazz radio disc jockey, and wholesaler of Esprit clothing. After burning out in his former career, Sando decided to grow heirloom tomatoes, despite having no experience in agriculture. When another farmer asked for help marketing beans, he decided to grow beans instead. Sando gathered bean seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, and found new varieties of beans in Oaxaca, Mexico.
Thomas Keller found the beans at a farmer's market in Yountville, California, and now uses the beans in his French Laundry and Per Se restaurants.
Bean production rose from 300 pounds in 2001 to 150,000 in 2007 and 250,000 in 2008. Beans and other products are sourced to local growers in California's central valley, Oregano and Washington, as well as Mexico, Peru, Poland and Bolivia. Most of the product is sold in packages of dried beans through Rancho Gordo's website, the Rancho Gordo stores in Napa and San Francisco, via wholesalers, or directly at farmers' markets and internet sales.
The company also markets hot sauce, dried pozole corn, grains, and chili peppers. Sando has written three books on beans. Heirloom Beans (co-written with Vanessa Barrington) (Chronicle Books 2009), The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Growers Guide (Timber Press 2011) and Supper at Rancho Gordo (Rancho Gordo Books 2014).
In 2015, Rancho Gordo introduced the Marcella bean, grown on the west coast from Italian sorana seed, at the suggestion of Marcella Hazan. The bean was harvested just as Hazan died and Sando marketed the bean as Marcella in tribute to Hazan, with the blessings of her husband, Victor.