SC - Our Favorite Fun Foods

[Christine A Seelye-King]

Hey all from Anne-Marie

re: nom de plums for fava beans....

see also broad beans, and "horse beans" of all things. The bins at our
middle eastern market show them to come in a wide variety of colors and
shapes and sizes, but the most common is either like a large browny green
lima bean with a thick leathery skin, or else the canned variety, which
resembles a brownish garbanzo bean with a thick skin. 

As far as I know, "black eyed peas" and "cowpeas" are new world beans. They
may have been introduced to colonial america by the slave trade, but
several other new world foods like sweet potatoes and peanuts were as well
(amazing how things move so quickly, no? The porteugese see 'em here, and
bring 'em home and use them and next thing you know, the Africans are using
them, and then they come back home...) Anything with the genus Phaseolus
is. Fava, garbanzos and lentils are in the pea family. If you get a chance
to look at the plants, you can eaily tell the difference, and if you wanna
do a bit of dissection, the way the seed is assembled can tell the
difference too. Kidney beans are Phaseolus, and they have a "belly button"
in a certain place. Fava and friends have their "belly buttons" in a
different place. 

hope this helps some...
- --AM, who is very angry with Mr Vehling for interpreting Apicius as being
for "french beans". Sheesh! 

============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================