WHEN WE SEE the term “green beans,” most of us think of the common snap bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). That’s just the surface of the world of fresh beans, though. Beautifully streaked and colored horticultural beans, flat pods, shell beans, slender filet beans, favas, soybeans, and limas all qualify as green beans, whether the whole pods or just the fresh beans inside the pods are eaten.

 

In Latin bean is faba and refers to the fava bean (Vicia faba) known in ancient Europe. In Slavic, fava beans are bobu and in German, Bohnen. A thousand years ago in Old English bean was pronounced BAY-ahn. But these were all favas or lentils. Green beans as we know them have their heritage in Central and South America. There’s archaeological evidence that they were cultivated in Peru 5,000 years ago, and lima beans (Phaseolus lunatus) were indeed first encountered by westerners when the Conquistadors entered Lima, Peru, in the 16th century. The Aztecs called green beans ayecotl, which has been carried into French as haricots.

Cooks interested in quality should be glad that organic green beans in season are becoming widely available, because the alternative isn’t very appetizing. Along with strawberries and peppers, green beans are one of the most heavily sprayed crops in conventional agriculture. And that’s because beans are as attractive to insects and diseases as they are to us. Organic growers have a variety of methods for dealing with insect pests like the Mexican bean beetle: planting soybeans as a trap crop, covering bean plants with fine-mesh row covers, releasing parasitic wasps that destroy the beetles’ larvae, and spraying the plants with the extract of the neem tree—a harmless substance that repels insects.

Green beans have just a trace of fat and no cholesterol and are a good source of protein—although it’s not a complete protein. That’s why Native Americans long ago planted corn, beans, and squash together, calling them the Three Sisters. Proteins from those three vegetables combined have all the amino acids that make up complete protein. Besides, they grow so well together. The corn grows tall, creating a pole for the beans to climb while the squash runs in the rows, its big leaves shading the ground and keeping down weeds. The beans, being a legume, add nitrogen to the soil through the action of nitrogen-fixing bacteria that colonize their roots, and nitrogen is exactly what corn needs to produce a bountiful crop.

 

The nutritional champion among beans is the lima bean—it has four times the amount of carbohydrates and folic acid of snap beans and three and a half times as much potassium. Beans are whole seeds, so they belong with whole grains and seeds on the new food pyramid.

Further, these green beans are grouped by size.  ....read more