[Sca-cooks] Fava bean adventures

[Robin Carroll-Mann]

On Sunday, my lord and I headed off to Paterson, New Jersey, in
search of the wily and elusive split fava bean.  (The city of Paterson
has one of the largest populations of Arab Americans in the U.S.
Paterson has a population of 160,000, of which 20,000 are
Muslims.)  We drove along Main Street, and after a dozen blocks,
came to the fuzzy boundary where Spanish bodegas and
carnicerias are intermixed with Halal meat markets, Turkish pastry
shops, and stores with names like "Palestine Beauty Salon".  We
drove a few blocks more, parked, and continued the search on foot.

The first few places had no fava beans, but they were primarily
butcher shops, and didn't have many packaged foods.  Two larger
grocery strores had no fava beans, and the counterperson had
never heard of them.  I later decided that this might be because
they were ethnically Turkish rather than Arab.  Just when I was
beginning to think I'd have to go to Brooklyn, I walked a block in the
opposite direction, and recognized a store I'd shopped in on a
previous visit to Paterson.  There, on the shelf, were 2-pound
packages of hulled, split fava beans, for just a few cents more than
I'd paid for 1 pound of the unhulled beans.

I was delighted to discover that the split beans cooked very
quickly; less pleased to find that they had a bitter aftertaste, even
after soaking and rinsing.  But tonight, I was trying a different
recipe ("Haba Real" recipe #241 in Nola), and I learned that
parboiling takes away the bitterness.  Success.  I still want to
tinker with the seasoning, but the basic problem is solved. Thank
you! to Master Adamantius, whose suggestion saved me from
many tedious hours of bean-peeling.


Brighid ni Chiarain *** mka Robin Carroll-Mann
Barony of Settmour Swamp, East Kingdom
rcmann4 at earthlink.net