the.com/fava
the bean that can poison you or pair with chianti, depending on your genes
means A large, flat, broad bean (Vicia faba) eaten fresh or dried, popular across Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cooking.
from From Italian fava, descended from Latin faba, "bean" — the same root that gave Spanish haba and lurks in surnames like Fabius (a Roman clan name said to mean "bean-grower"). The Latin faba reaches back to Proto-Italic and possibly an older Indo-European bean-word, a cousin of words for beans in Slavic and Germanic tongues. So when you say "fava," you're speaking nearly unchanged Latin across two thousand years of dinner tables.
- favism
- raw favas trigger fatal anemia in millions worldwide
- oldest crop
- farmed since 6000 BC across the Mediterranean
- hannibal lecter
- his menu made favas eternally sinister
- nitrogen fixer
- roots fertilize soil for free as they grow
- pythagoras ban
- the philosopher forbade his followers from eating them
fava bean — legume crop grown across mediterranean, china, and ethiopia for thousands of years
fava bean allergy — favism: genetic condition affecting 400+ million people with g6pd deficiency, triggered by fava consumption