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Beans: Part 2 - History and Definition

History
   Beans have been, and are to this day, an important source of protein throughout the Old and New World. To attest the popularity of this base ingredient in many traditional and modern diets, suffice it to note that over 4,000 different bean cultivars are currently on record in the United States alone. See the Native Seeds / S.E.A.R.C.H. online catalogue to see some of it.

The common bean has been cultivated for thousands of years. The oldest-known domesticated beans in the Americas dates back to around the second millennium BC and was found at the archaeological site of Guitarrero Cave, in Peru.

Christopher Columbus found that beans were cultiuvated in the Americas while exploring what may have been today's Bahamas, though the variety Vigna, known also as 'eye beans', was already cultivated in Europe. In pre-Columbian times, at least half a dozen kinds of beans of the Phaseolus family were domesticated in the Americas, including:

• Common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) grown from Chile to the northern part of what are today the United States.
• Lima and sieva beans (Phaseolus lunatus).
• Teparies (Phaseolus acutifolius).
• Scarlet runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus).
• Polyanthus beans (Phaseolus polyanthus)

Native American people, from what is today South America to as far north as the Atlantic seaboard, often cultivated beans applying the 'Three Sisters' method, which alternated the cultivation of beans, corn and squash in the same field.

Definition
   The word 'bean' originally referred to the seed of the broad bean (Vicia Faba, known also as Fava Bean, Field Bean, Bell Bean or Tic Bean, a species of bean (Fabaceae or Leguminosae) native to North Africa and Southwest Asia, which is extensively cultivated elsewhere as well.

Boiled Beans: Some ways they can be stored, preserved and served Click on the images above to see larger pictures

Currently though, the meaning has expanded to include other seeds, such as common bean and runner bean, which belong to the genus Phaseolus, and many other related plants such as soybeans, peas, lentils, kidney beans, garbanzos, and lupins.

To further confuse the matter, the word 'beans' is also sometimes used in English for seeds or pods of plants which does not belong to the Fabaceae or Leguminosae family, though they bear a superficial resemblance to true beans, such as coffee beans, castor beans, cocoa beans, and vanilla beans. Additionally, 'beans' may refer to the tender been pods, such as the various types of green beans, which are usually cooked whole.

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