The first time I ever saw a string bean, I was 13 years old. I was dining with my family in a small, local restaurant, when a plate containing string beans arrived at our table.

When I say string beans, I mean long, thin, immature runner beans, you may call them something else, fine beans, green beans, you might even call them haricot vert. I’d never seen them before, because my father absolutely detested them and they were banned from my childhood home. I don’t think I can overstate just how much my father hated string beans. He hated them with the sort of passion usually reserved for ex-wives, rival sports teams and politicians. He despised them, hard.