FAVA BEANS

They look like regular beans swollen with gangrene. Inside the hulls, though, are the little dense-textured, dark-green fava beans, which are everything those cardboardy lima beans promised and failed to deliver. The ancient Egyptians loved favas; in fact, all the Mediterranean countries have a taste for them (ironically, many Mediterranean people also suffer from an inherited allergy called favism). They were what the word beans meant in England before the beans familiar to us today came from the New World.

Unfortunately, they’re a lot of work, since once you get them out of their cottony hulls (actually, a rather pleasant task), you have to peel a tight, translucent skin off each little bean. They’re worth it, though; you can eat them briefly boiled, or even raw with a little salt or salty cheese. Favas are in season from spring through summer.