Beans

There are beans and there are beans. "Haricot", a word we associate with the French language, when applied to beans means a plant originating in South America. In fact, haricot is an Aztec word, originally, ayacotl. Haricot beans include limas, black beans, pinto beans, white beans, green beans, kidney beans, even black-eyed peas, which are, in fact, beans. All these variations stem from an ancestral plant that has been dated back 9000 years.

Detail of a Navajo (Dine) sandpainting depicting a bean plant.

Both Northern and Southern native Americans made extensive use of the bean, then, as now. The haricot is botanically Phaseolus vulgaris, and encompasses most of the beans we think of as beans. But then there are fava or broad beans, those large podded hearty lima-esque beans which originated in that other continent and became a staple food of primitive cultures across Mediterranean Europe. This plant is Vicia faba.

"Beaneater" by Annibale Carracci

The Tuscan-dwelling Italians who eat "fagioli" with everything are not eating fava beans, but the haricot brought to Europe with the Spanish in the 1500's. The soybean, the world's most important legume nutritionally, is more pealike than beanlike, really, and will be covered elsewhere. Glycine max originated in Southwest Asia more than 4000 years ago.

Humorous mid 20th century post card

Bruce Stringbean doll, late 20th century, USA

Children's game, 1980's USA

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