Meet the Bean Pie Guy!

Alfred Ra’oof

At the annual Tracy Dry Bean Festival last September the California Dry Bean Advisory Board booth was next to Ra’oofs San Jose Bean Pies in the Bean Pavilion. Our own Ali Cox was intrigued by this notion of bean pies and asked if I would do a Q & A with Alfred Ra’oof, “the bean pie guy”. I personally have never eaten a bean pie, but you can be assured I will be at the Tracy Dry Bean Festival this year and am definitely trying one of these delicious looking pies!

Question and Answer with Alfred Ra’oof of Ra’oofs San Jose Bean Pies:

Q: How and when did you get interested in making bean pies?

A: I became interested in making bean pies in the summer of 1964. I had dinner at the Shabazz Restaurant on 51st and Main Street in Los Angeles and had a bean pie for the first time for dessert. I was convinced that this was by far the best pie that I had ever tasted. I asked the chef of Shabazz if he would give me the recipe. He had to refuse because he had to honor the contractual agreement that he had with the owner of the restaurant. I would go to this restaurant every day for lunch, dinner or both. Eventually, the chef and I became very good friends. After constantly badgering him for the recipe I was able to get him to accept the fact that if he just gave me the ingredients, he would not be violating the agreement he had with the owner. So he gave me a list of all the ingredients needed to make a bean pie.

I began by using the kitchen in my one bedroom apartment as a laboratory and with some library books on the science of baking a month later I was able to produce my first edible bean pie. I was attending Los Angeles City College at the time and I would sell these kitchen made pies door to door in my neighborhood as a source of income.

Q: Do you use dry beans or canned? What variety?

A: I use dry navy beans only. I learned that these beans are a perfect food: rich in protein, fiber and vitamin A and completely fat free.

Q: What makes your bean pies so special:

A: My bean pies are special because they are each made individually by my hands and cannot be duplicated even if someone was to somehow obtain the recipe.

Q: Do you have family members helping you make and sell the pies?

A: In the summer season when all the farmers markets are open and I am trying to service eight markets, my wife helps me in the kitchen that I rent in Campbell, California. I have one college student that helps me sell at three of the markets. At the annual Tracy Dry Bean Festival in downtown Tracy, my sister comes here all the way from Virginia Beach, Virginia and helps me at this two day festival. My wife, son and three grandchildren also help at the festival. It’s a great team!

Q: Do you only sell at farmers markets?

A: Yes. I do sell at events other than the farmers markets when I am invited to do so. Other than the farmers markets and the Tracy Dry Bean Festival, I regularly attend the annual Halal Fest in Newark, California.

Q: What do you like best about what you do?

A: The thing I like the best about what I do is when my customers tell me how much they enjoyed my pies. I like the fact that I can start with nothing but an idea, and from that idea create something that other people enjoy and believed never before existed until I made it.