[Sca-cooks] Food and personality

Terry Decker t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net
Tue Mar 4 14:49:10 PST 2008


I think you are making a linguistic mistake equating "fagioli" with favas 
and chickpeas.  "Fagioli" derives from "phaseolus" and according to Pliny 
and others is different from favas and chickpeas.  There has been some 
dispute about precisely what "phaseolus" was, but a number of sources 
believe that it was a member of genus Vigna, essentially some variant of the 
black-eyed pea.  There is a 16th Century Italian painting titled "The Bean 
Eater" which shows an Italian peasant chowing down on what looks 
suspiciously like a bowl of black-eyed peas.

While the term "phaseolus" has become the genus name for the New World 
beans, "fagioli" modernly encompasses both genus Phaseolus and genus Vigna.

Bear

> Well, just as an example, the Tuscans have been known as "mangiafagioli"
> (bean-eaters) for some centuries now. :-)  Obviously it means they eat a 
> lot
> of beans (starting with old-world varieties like favas and chickpeas, but
> later including the New World-derived beans we now think of as typical of
> Northern Italian cooking, such as cannellini or borlotti).  <clipped>
>
> Vittoria



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