General Information
This bean is 6-8″ long with a soft, green outer shell. The entire bean can be eaten if harvested when the bean is only 2-3″ long. Most favas should be shelled prior to eating. Raw or cooked, the fava has a pungent palatableness. Good source of vitamins A and C and also potassium. Quite sophisticated for a bean per se and considered a culinary luxury by its true fans and chefs, five to seven fava beans are encased in a large green pod that is definitely inedible. Even though the pod is smooth skinned and soft, it is tough and must be peeled away and discarded.
History
A very ancient “bean”, this age-old vegetable actually dates back to the European Iron Age. The word “faba” means bean and was named after a noble Roman family, Fabii. An important ingredient in Chinese cuisine for nearly five thousand years, the French love favas so much that fava bean season is celebrated as a very special occasion in southern France. Introduced to America in 1602, American cooks for some reason haven’t really bonded to this edible morsel so favas continue to be a specialty item. In the United States, mainly the southern states enjoy its culinary virtues. Old English cookbooks refer to it as “the common bean” and most English-speaking countries call it “broad bean”. The fava bean is botanically known as Vicia faba minor, rightfully a vetch, and is not a true bean as beans, such as snap, black, pintos, limas, wax and cranberry, are of the Phasaeolus species. A vetch is any of the twining or climbing plants of the genus Vicia. Other names for the fava include English bean, Windsor bean, tick bean, bell bean and horse bean.
