At Whittier’s Point Easy, a restaurant situated in the heart of Denver, a dish featuring a unique ingredient has captured the attention of local diners. When inquiring about the Fremont beans accompanying a pork chop entrée, a server began to weave an intriguing tale about their origins.
According to her, these remarkable beans were unearthed from a clay pot within a cave dwelling in Utah, leading to a small number being given to a farmer, who then cultivated them for sale.
Curiosity sparked, I decided to order the dish for myself. When the plate was placed before me, I was greeted by beans that resembled Jack-and-the-beanstalk proportions—purplish, nearly spherical, and plumped significantly from hours of cooking.
With a flavorful, earthy profile and an almost meaty interior, I quickly realized these were no ordinary baked beans.
Determined to uncover the truth behind the legend, I sought information from Point Easy’s executive chef, Reuben Tomlins. He expressed his fascination with the story relayed to him by his food supplier about these Indigenous beans from the Four Corners area being cultivated by local farmers.
My investigation took me to the Fassett Hay and Cattle Company in Olathe, Colorado, where the Fremont beans are commonly sourced. Meanwhile, I stumbled upon a Kansas-based company named 21st Century Bean, offering the beans at an astonishing price of $25 per pound.
The packaging reiterated the story I had heard at Point Easy and credited Worden Farms, located in Burlington, Colorado, as the grower.
This discovery led me to Darin Worden, the originator of the Fremont beans story. He recounted how about 12 years ago, he and his wife visited a café in Elsinore, Utah, where the owner served a Crock-Pot of large beans he had supposedly found during highway construction near St. George in the 1960s.
Impressed by the beans, Worden was gifted a Ziploc bag containing approximately 40 seeds.
From those seeds, he cultivated enough beans for seed stock, which he shared with his brother Doug, who began growing them on his farm in Burlington.
Between 2015 and 2021, the beans were harvested and sold in Utah through Darin’s Heirlooms and More Farm and Produce, where the name ‘Fremont beans’ was chosen to pay homage to the pre-Columbian Fremont people, who once inhabited the region.
Eventually, Doug collaborated with 21st Century Bean for better cleaning and sorting, as the beans’ size prevents automated processing. Presently, 21st Century Bean retains ownership of the Fremont beans name.
While the clay pot narrative adds a romantic notion, it’s unlikely that the original beans are simply relics of a lost civilization.
Rachel Quist, an archaeologist based in Salt Lake City, highlighted how she purchased some Fremont beans at a local market and conducted further research.
After speaking with Darin Worden and sending samples to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, she discovered that these beans are likely a larger variety of the scarlet runner bean, featuring some unique traits, such as occasional black or white variations.
Quist also noted that the chances of dry beans sprouting after sitting for 500 years, as some narratives suggest, are slim.
She found no archaeological evidence corroborating the clay pot story and speculated that these beans may have simply been stored or left as offerings by more recent Native peoples before being uncovered.
Currently, Doug still cultivates Fremont beans on about nine acres of land in Burlington, yielding around 800 pounds per acre—a notably low yield in bean farming.
Kali Fassett from Fassett Hay and Cattle shared that her family continues to grow Fremont beans in Olathe from seeds initially provided by the Wordens.
This year, their crop was planted in mid-June, ensuring the legacy of the Fremont beans continues.
Regardless of their true origins, the remarkable Fremont beans thrive today thanks to dedicated farmers in Colorado and the culinary passion arising from local eateries.
If you’re willing to splurge, you too can experience a taste of what is not just a unique ingredient, but a slice of local history.
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