Steve Sando

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.