The Most Delicious Spring Vegetable, the Fava Bean
Pythagoras may have hated them, but in my opinion they are the best thing about spring. With recipe.
This week traditionally marks the end of spring, and it wouldn’t be right for me to let spring pass without writing about fava beans.
Beans of all kinds have something of an odd reputation in American cuisine. They are thought of as an odd cross between a vegetable and a starch; inexpensive, sure, but not exactly an object of desire. To be “on beans and rice” is to be eating frugally to the point of self abnegation. This might explain why the fava bean is so little-known in the United States. This is a shame: a plate of fresh favas is, to me, one of the great joys of springtime. It’s a taste of new life and warm days after the discomforts of winter, and it’s something I look forward to all year long. Fresh favas have a nuttiness that accompanies their garden-pea flavor, and a sweetness that rivals the artichoke, its springtime companion.
Fava beans are one of the oldest cultivated foods in the world- they are so old that their domestication, at the very dawn of agriculture, is still a little bit of a mystery. They are the product of the region we call the “fertile crescent”, the curve of territory that covers the Eastern shore of the Mediterranean, the foothills of Turkey, Syria and Iraq, and the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. This is the region where humans first cultivated crops and made farms. And one of the first plants they grew was the fava bean. It’s considered one of the “foundation crops” of human agriculture.
Fava beans- known of course by dozens of names- spread throughout Western Asia and the Mediterranean, and became a basic foodstuff of ancient Egyptians and Greeks, but probably the spread of the fava was due to the Phoenicians who brought it West to modern North Africa, Spain, and Sicily. Though the fava bean was a basic foodstuff in ancient Greece, it also developed a bad reputation: Greeks saw the letter theta (θ) in the black-and-white flower of the fava, a symbol which is associated with death. Additionally, fava stalks are hollow, and an idea developed that these stalks were a tunnel to the underworld. Fava bean superstition reached its height, however, with the philosopher Pythagoras (yes, the theorem guy). Pythagoras developed a passionate abhorrence of the fava bean- he felt that souls from the underworld crawled up the stalks and deposited themselves in the bean pods. He thought the beans resembled human babies, and regarded fava-eating as cannibalism. He was thoroughly anti-fava: he seemed to be terrified by the plant, and forbade his followers to eat or touch favas. According to legend, while being pursued by an angry mob, his only escape route was across a field of fava plants, which he refused to enter. He preferred to die rather than touch a fava bean. Pythagoras was a weirdo.
There might actually be some rationale to the Greek fear of fava beans: a small percentage of Greeks have favism, a severe allergy to fava beans which can be fatal. But everyone else seemed to love them.
One great thing about fava beans is they are nourishing: rich in protein and fiber, they are, like lentils and chickpeas, an exceptionally healthful food. They are also easy to grow: since the fava plant fixes its own nitrogen, it can be grown in very poor soils, and it can leave soil richer than before. In Sicily, favas are planted in bits of land that are otherwise undesirable- little parched parcels next to railroad tracks and construction sites.
If you want to try fresh favas, now is the time to get them. They are easiest to find in Middle Eastern markets, where they have huge piles of them this time of year. Buy way more than you think you need- favas must be twice-shelled and they produce a lot of waste.
To prepare fresh fava beans, you break the pods open and use your thumb to release the beans into a bowl. Once you have the beans out, they are still covered with a whitish-grey skin. To remove, simply blanch them in boiling water for a minute or so, which will loosen the skins. Drain and cool, and simply pierce the skin with your thumbnail and squeeze. The bright green fava bean will pop out, and it’s ready to eat.
My favorite way to eat fresh favas is incredibly simple. I just saute them with a bit of garlic and the best olive oil I can get, and toss them with pasta. If you want to make a good thing even better, throw in sliced cooked artichoke hearts (not the marinated kind). For Easter, I like to go even bigger: mixing fresh favas, artichokes, peas, spring onions, and asparagus in a pasta dish that is amazingly delicious.
Fresh fava beans are a lot of work, but they are worth it: healthful, nutty, unctuous, sweet, and thoroughly nourishing.
p.s. dried fava beans are also great, but those are a winter thing in my opinion so you’ll have to wait until then to hear about them!
Pasta Con le Fave (pasta with fava beans)
3 pounds fresh fava beans, in their pods
1 pound dried pasta (I always use a tubular pasta like ziti or rigatoni)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 sprig fresh mint or basil, minced
good quality olive oil (the greener-tasting the better)
Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, grated
First, remove the beans from their pods. Like all bean-shelling, this is best done at the kitchen table with company. I like to recruit my kids, whose small hands make the work easy. You’ll get the hang of it quickly, and before long you’ll have a bowlful of greyish-green skinned favas.
Next, bring about 3 cups of water to a boil. Dump your fava beans in the water, letting them simmer for about a minute. Drain and let cool. Now, back at the table, you have to peel the beans. I use my thumbnail to make a little cut in the edge of the bean, then squeeze it. Pop! Out comes a green fava bean. It’s easier than it seems, and before long you’ll have about 3 cups of shelled beans.
Bring your pasta water to a boil, salt generously, and add the pasta. While it cooks, saute the minced garlic in oil in a big saute pan, but do not let it brown. Add your favas and the mint or basil, and just bring them up to temperature. Add a spoonful or three of the pasta water, which will make a glossy sauce with the oil. Salt and pepper to taste. When the pasta is done, drain and add it to the sauce, tossing to cover. Serve with a grating of pecorino or your favorite grating cheese.
That picture cracked me up completely. My roommate did not understand.
Many names come from the root “fava”: Fabio, Fabia, Fabian, Fabiana and Fabiola. I think it attests to the importance of fava beans in antiquity.