[Sca-cooks] Kidney beans was Delights From The Garden of Eden

[Johnna Holloway]

Ken Albala in his prize winning book Beans mentions that 
"Most older authors translate phaselus as kidney beans, which obviously it was not."

This would include people translating the classical authors.

I first encountered this in John Harvey's Mediaeval Gardens where he writes 
"The kidney bean of antiquity, not that of modern times, is meant by fasiolum. In this case too an American genus of plants Phaseolus, has usurped the name of a plant which now be placed in the genera Dolichos or Vigna." page 30
and later 
"On the continent there had been Kidney Beans from classical times, belonging to the
modern genera Dolichos or Vigna; all forms of French Beans and Scarlet Runners belong to the genius
Phaseolus and are of American origin." page 121

Was she discussing the classical "kidney bean" by chance?

Johnnae

On Apr 24, 2013, at 9:00 PM, David Friedman wrote:

> On the other hand… . In her translation of al-Warraq, she identifies one of the kinds of beans mentioned as kidney beans, which according to other sources I have seen are New World. So I am a little concerned that she may be too willing to assume that knowledge of current practice can be projected back to period practice.
> Of course, knowledge of current practice can be highly informative when we don't have other sources of information, as in her comment on sweating meat.