Vicia, Broad Bean, English Bean, Fava Bean, Windsor Bean 'Acme'

Fava beans are highly underrated in North American cuisine! My family and I learned to love them while living in the highlands of the Mex...Read Moreican state of Puebla, where they are a staple food item. They have found a niche there because of their productivity and great tolerance to cool temps. Also, by personal experience, we’ve found that they well tolerate white alkali conditions if they receive sufficient irrigation.

Fava beans are eaten at two quite distinct stages. In the green (tender) stage, they are shelled from their pods and cooked much like peas (which they neither resemble nor taste like). Tender favas are good as a vegetable side dish or in soups. We like to add them to stews. Mature favas develop a hard skin, besides their outer pod. This outer skin must be pealed before cooking. In Mexico, they sell a special hook shaped “haba pealer” (haba is fava bean in Spanish) in most market places. Mature favas lose their shape when cooked and form a yellow paste, which is good in stews and soups, and is also used to stuff various corn based patties (tlacoyo in Puebla). These are delicious and make wonderful snacks and travel food.

Fava beans should be planted at the same time as peas, since they do not handle heat very well. They are free standing, even though some varieties can reach up to 5 feet in height. In the state of Puebla I’ve often seen them interplanted with potatoes. Then, as the potatoes and fava beans began to peter out, the farmers would interplant them with corn and regular beans (p. vulgarus).

Neither I nor my family has ever seen an allergic reaction to favas. However, we always counsel those who are first trying them, to try “one” first, before eating any more. The allergy seems most common in those of Mediterranean descent.

Fava bean flowers attract honey bees and their seed seems unaffected by weevils.

One hundred million people worldwide have G6PD deficiency, which causes life-threatening hemolytic anemia, but only under rather unusual ...Read Moreconditions-eating fava beans, inhaling pollen in Baghdad, or taking a certain antimalarial drug.