DavidMTY
Jul 11, 2002, 11:20 PM
Post #10 of 17
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Frijoles & more fabichuelas
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So where does Frijol fit in...<p>It is time to give the Italians and Greeks their chance, specifically those from Fiesole in Tuscany: a minor walk from Florence. Fiesole used to be a very important city on trade routes, and a more powerful city than Florence, where Speculation is that the population was in love with Black-eyed Pea(the "Pea" from Asia and brought to Africa, first domesticated in Egypt 5,500 years ago,_Vigna unguiculata_, (Fiesole apparently had a regional dish cooked of immature Black-eyed Peas in inmature green crescent shaped pods). The name of the town suggests it was related to the Greek faseol and latin faseolus (Phaseolus), also the word for crescent shaped boat, and the hills above the pre-historic town certainly resemble a crescent shape, too. So the conquistadores experience knowledge of this city led them to call bean like things fiesoles==>fesoles==>frijoles mutating after a few centuries of mixing sounds.<p>With respect to habichuela, the Black-eyed Pea also figured as it was the original one causing this term to get generated, about 1,000 years ago, in Mozarabic Spanish dialect, the diminuative of faba (haba) was used with the appropriate aspiration: favichuela, to refer to the thinner pods.<p>Best..David(MTY)<p>
: Habichuela is just the diminutive form of haba, from the Roman (Latin) word for the "bean" of the age in Europe, the faba. To confuse things further, this "bean" is actually scientifically more identified with the PEA Family, and even gives its name to the Pea Family: Fabacae, after this "bean"! :-P. Though Peas and Beans are sometimes said to be in the Pea and Bean Family, and the word Leguminosae is used as well to name the family. In short the scientists can't make up their mind.<p>: You probably have seen faba beans in the store at some point: They are the fat green waxy pods with the big brown bean seeds inside. One reason the entire pea family is named after them is that the "Faba beans" were the only "food-beans" in Europe from ancient Greek times to the 1500's. That especially included Italy and thus the latin word "fava". Today's scientific name for this bean is _Vicia faba_. They were originally domesticated around Persia probably 8,000 years ago or so, though when Egypt became the worlds only superpower they assimulated them in a big way, and invented the "falafel" grinding them up. <p>: Which also gets more interesting in Biblical times, as when the Jews were in Egypt their principle food was the faba bean and soups made from it. Sephardic Jew's, in step with their old traditions in Spain, maintained these in the diet, and especially around the holy days (like matzos today), thus explaining the reason why another word today for beans in the Spanish language carried over in the form of: Judías.<p>: The faba bean was so important that the latin word for bread, panis, which led to the Spanish, pan, is actually from the greek name for faba: puanos.<p>: Now even for a bit more excitement, the currently more popular eating _Phaseolus_ sp. bean species originated and were cultivated into antiquity in Southern Mexico to Honduras; as even much further back in Peruvian areas. The conquistadors brought these Latin American species back and by 1600 they had even reached China. (undoubtably "habas" judías was shortened to judías at this time, much as one could imagine Lima bean in English being shortened to simply Limas and/or beans. If you ever wondered, the larger Lima beans, _Phaseolus limensis _, were endemic to the Peruvian coast precursors domesticated about 8,000 years ago, but the smaller seed butterbean varieties, precursors domesticated from Central American Mexico and Guatemala area _Phaseolus lunatus _ date about 2,400 years back.<p>: HARICOT BEANS & MEXICO: Includes: Green Beans, French Beans, Pole Beans, Kidney Beans, Navy Beans, Chili Beans, Pinto Beans and Black Beans are collectively sometimes known as haricot beans, all come from _Phaseolus vulgarus_, after the French picked upon cultivating them for culinery innovation, getting the seeds from the Spanish conquistador's. The Spanish when they originally brought them back, called them "Ayecotl" (Francocized into Haricot, a basic French vocab), surprise, from the Aztec Nahuatl word they were told meant that, though it was specific, to plump seeded beans, and the pod green beans in Nahuatl are as mentioned in my other post, Exotl, which in was hispanicized to Ejote. A clarification: Though the species was around in Central Mexico for 6,000 years, the indigenous did not begin cultivating it until 2,000 years ago. The Spanish brought it to Europe, but the French really perfected it in many more ways in a much shorter time, including the development of the edible, tender green beans in a pod (French Beans, Green Beans), and even exported this back to Mexico where it was adopted immediately.<p>: So while Exotl is the appropriate Nahautl word for the precursor string beans in a pod, giving rise to the term ejote, it didn't refer to the tender green snap beans we know today, but it was the closest thing. Ejotes franceses would be a very accurate term, and in English the best we can do is fall back on "Haricot" and call Green Beans: Haricot Beans, which is correct, unambiguous nomenclature in English.<p>: And habichuelas would have caught on in different regions to describe any bean smaller than the faba, which is most except the big Peruvian Lima! So if we wanted to distinguish with special names we could, but popular naming has led to the puzzles of today's names. <p>: However, as the first to develop haricot beans the French might have some major claim in the name, who in turn shared given credit to their original raw material source of _Phaseolus vulgaris_: the Aztecs. By the way, Phaseolus means "boat" to describe the pod, and vulgaris, common. So internationally all the Mexican haricots are known as common boat beans if translating their scientific name. That about takes care of most of the Western peas and bean that are eaten!<p>: Best...David(MTY)<p><p>: : The word "habichuelas" is used Puerto Rico. My dictionary says it is kidney beans.<p>: : : Thanks, these are the words I was familiar with but I looked in a dictionary and peas were called "guisantes" and greenbeans were " los porotos; las habichuelas or las judias". Im presently living in Canada, but grew up along the Texas/Mexico border so my "Spanish" is more of a "Spanglish". I'm trying to teach my little girl "Spanish" and wanted to make sure that ejotes and chicharo were the proper terms. <p>
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