Since 2001, Steve Sando has taken the
lowly bean from a healthy but neglected, over-bred
member of the vegetable family to a near
superstar-status ingredient. Sando's company
Rancho Gordo, grows heirloom and heritage
varieties and works with influential chefs like
Thomas Keller, Deborah Madison, Paula Wolfert
and Annie Sommerville.
Sando's seed-saving efforts and bean production
provide professional and home chefs with the
opportunity to literally eat American history.
Sando's heirloom beans, along with corn and chiles,
have become vital ingredients in the new American
food revolution centered in the San Francisco Bay
Area. In fact, Sando and Rancho Gordo were
named Number Two on Saveur magazine's
prestigious The Saveur 100 list for 2008.
Rancho Gordo production is primarily in
California. In addition to beans, they
are promoting, growing and occasionally
importing indigenous foods of the Americas, Sando
constantly tours The Americas looking for rare,
endangered and delicious samples to save and
grow in his trial gardens in Napa, California.
Sando's books include Heirloom Beans: Recipes
from Rancho Gordo, co-written with Vanessa
Barrington and with an introduction by
Thomas Keller (The French Laundry Cookbook), (Chronicle Books, 2008), The Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Growers Guide (Timber Press 2011), Supper at Rancho Gordo (Rancho Gordo Press 2014) and The Rancho Gordo Vegetarian Kitchen (Rancho Gordo Press 2017) with Julia Newberry.
Sando was named as one of Bon Appetit magazines Hot Ten, along with Daniel Boulud and Ubuntu's Jeremy Fox.
