Vicia faba
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The fava bean, Vicia faba, is also known as the broad bean in the United Kingdom, horse bean or field bean. While in the same family, Fabaceae (Leguminosae), it is not particularly close to the common beans of the genus Phaseolus. It is in the same genus as common vetch. It is frost-tolerant, and is used as a cover crop, for animal feed, and for its edible seeds and young pods.
These beans are among the most ancient and also the easiest vegetables in cultivation. Each seed gives about three or four square sectioned stems, the standard varieties growing about 4 ft tall and the dwarfs 12–18 inches. In some varieties the fragrant white and black flowers are followed by short and broad leathery pods, others are long and narrow.
Inside these pods are the beans — round or kidney-shaped, white or green, depending on the variety chosen. Begin picking as early as the end of May if you have pampered the crop, but even the maincrop sown in the ordinary way in early April will be ready in July — the first of the garden beans to grace your table.
Fava beans are rich in tyramine, and thus should be avoided by those taking monoamine oxidase inhibitors. As they contain vicine and convicine, they can induce hemolytic anemia in patients with Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PD). This disease, which is quite common in certain ethnic groups, is therefore called "favism".
Fava beans have a long tradition of cultivation in old world agriculture. It is believed that lentils, fava beans, and chickpeas became part of the eastern Mediterranean diet in around 6000 BC.
Fava beans in culture
All European references to beans from before 1492 are to this species.
In ancient Greece and Rome, beans were used in voting (a white bean meant yes and a black bean meant no). Pythagoras called on his disciples to abstain from beans. It is, however, controversial whether they were meant to abstain from eating beans or from involving themselves in politics.
According to tradition, Sicily once experienced a failure of all crops other than the fava bean; the fava kept the population from starvation, and thanks were given to Saint Joseph.
Fava beans are traditional on Saint Joseph's Day altars in Italian American communities. Some people carry a fava bean for good luck; some believe that if one carries a fava bean, one will never be without the essentials of life.
In Italy, fava beans are traditionally sown on November 2, All Souls Day, and are thus known as the Beans of the Dead.
Fava beans are mentioned in a famous line from the movie Silence of the Lambs, when Hannibal Lecter says, "I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti."
In ancient Greece and Rome, beans were used and as a food for the dead, such as during the annual Lemuria festival. In some folk legends, such as in Estonia and the common Jack and the Beanstalk story, magical beans grow tall enough to bring the hero to the clouds. The Grimm Brothers collected a story in which a bean splits its sides laughing at the failure of others. Dreaming of a bean is sometimes said to be a sign of impending conflict, though others said that they caused bad dreams. Pliny claimed that they acted as a laxative. European folklore also claims that planting beans on Good Friday or during the night brings good luck.
The modern name Fabian derives from this bean.