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This week’s CSA bag (from Rolling Prairie Farmer’s Alliance) included a pound or so of wax beans, a rarity in my many years of CSA subscribing.

These wax beans were different from the ones I recall from childhood. My farmer grandparents always had a kitchen garden that included green beans and a few wax beans. (They grew bush beans, for gardener-readers who care.) The wax beans were interesting for their pale color but were otherwise uninteresting and occasionally fibrous, even after being boiled a very long time, which was Grandma’s standard procedure.

The only other wax beans I’ve experienced (though who knows, with my memory what it is…) were canned beans used in three-bean salads, primarily, I assume, for color.

With that background for inspiration, I don’t believe I ever bought any wax beans, until these showed up this week.

These, like the ones of yore, were interesting for their pale yellow color. (That color, by the way, is the only explanation I’ve been able to find for their being called “wax” and also is the only thing that distinguishes them from green beans.) Unlike the ones in my past, these were slender (less than 1/4 inch) beans and crisp.

I snapped off the ends and dropped them in boiling salted water for 4 minutes. After draining them, I put a scoopful on my plate to eat with my meal and rinsed the others in cold water, then refrigerated them.

The hot ones were quite delightful, served with a grind of pepper and a drizzle of the delicious olive oil a sister gave me for Christmas. Then, I wondered what I’ll do with the rest. Here are some likely possibilities:

• Make them a salad feature. Just as with green beans, they’ll do nicely over lettuce with a little vinaigrette.
• I may try this salad from Cooking Light featuring wax beans, tomatoes and roasted red peppers.
• Although the recipe calls for using hot beans, I may just try Elise’s wax beans and mint combo cold.