Bean

Bean, Roy, c.1825-1903, legendary American frontier judge, b. Mason co., Ky. He left Kentucky in 1847 to seek his fortune in California. Soon, however, he was managing a trading post in Chihuahua, Mexico. In 1849 he was chased back into U.S. territory for cattle rustling. During the Civil War, Roy Bean aided the Confederate cause by joining a band of lawless irregulars. After the war he followed the construction camps of the Southern Pacific RR as a saloonkeeper and gambler. In 1882, Bean settled at the Texas camp of Vinegaroon, had it renamed Langtry (for the English actress Lillie Langtry), named himself justice of the peace (to which he added the title "the law west of the Pecos"), and set up court in his saloon, the Jersey Lily. He there began to dispense justice with the aid of one law book and a six-shooter. As a judge, Bean rendered arbitrary and unorthodox decisions, usually tempered with wit and common sense.

bean, name applied to the seeds of leguminous trees and shrubs and to various leguminous plants of the family Leguminosae (pulse family) with edible seeds or seed pods (legumes). The genera and species encompassed by the term bean are many and variable. The broad beans (Vicia faba, of the vetch genus), the soybean types (Glycine max), and a few lesser species were the only beans known to the Old World before the discovery of America, by which time the indigenous peoples had already developed most of the bean types still used today, e.g., the lima beans, kidney beans, string beans, shell beans, and pea beans. All these are species and varieties of Phaseolus, the "true" bean genus; the hereditary history of most is unknown, and hence the taxonomic distinctions are often still uncertain. The plants are easily cultivated but susceptible to several diseases, e.g., rusts, blights, wilts, and bean anthracnose (a fungus).

Types of Beans

In general, beans are warm-season annuals (although the roots of tropical species tend to be perennial) that grow erect (bush types) or as vines (pole or running types). Field beans are mostly the bush type and are used as stock feed. This has also become the principal use of the ancient large-seeded broad bean (called also the horse or Windsor bean), still widely grown in Europe but seldom as food for humans.

The common garden beans comprise several bush types and most of the pole types; the most often cultivated and most varied species, P. vulgata, is familiar as both types. P. vulgata is the French haricot and the Spanish frijole. String beans, snap beans, green and yellow wax beans, and some kidney beans are eaten as whole pods; several kidney beans, pinto beans, pea beans, and many other types are sold as mature dry seeds. The lima or butter beans (P. lunatus, including the former P. limensis), usually pole but sometimes bush types, have a long history; they have been found in prehistoric Peruvian graves. The sieva is a type of lima. The scarlet runner (P. multiflorus), grown in Europe for food, is mainly an ornamental vine in North America. The tepary (P. acutifolius latifolius), a small variety long grown by Indians in the SW United States, has been found better suited to hot, arid climates and is more prolific than the frijole.

Other beans are the hyacinth bean or lablab (Dolichos lablab), grown in E Asia and the tropics for forage and food and cultivated in North America as an ornamental vine; the asparagus bean or yard-long bean (Vigna sesquipedalis), grown in E Asia for food but often cultivated in the West as a curiosity; and the velvet bean (Stizolobium), cultivated in the S United States as a forage and cover crop. The carob, the cowpea or black-eyed pea, and the chickpea or garbanzo are among the many other legumes sometimes considered beans. The sacred bean of India is the seed of the Indian lotus (of the water lily family).

Uses of Beans

Because seeds contain much protein, beans are useful as a meat substitute and in different parts of the world are a characteristic item—often a staple—of the national fare. Baked beans, cooked for hours with pork or molasses or both, are a traditional New England dish. The Greeks and Romans used the broad bean for balloting—black seeds to signify opposition and white seeds agreement. This custom lingered in England in the election of the king and queen for Twelfth Night and other celebrations and was taken to the New World colony at Massachusetts Bay, where Indian beans were used.

Classification

Beans are classified in the division Magnoliophyta, class Magnoliopsida, order Rosales, family Leguminosae.

Vine (Pachyrhizus erosus, or P. tuberosus), also called yam bean. A legume native of Mexico and Central and South America, it is grown for its edible root. The irregularly globular, brown-skinned tubers are white-fleshed, crisp, and juicy. There are two varieties, those with clear juice and those with milky juice. Both have a mild flavour and are eaten raw or cooked. Sometimes very young seedpods of the plant are eaten, but the mature seeds are highly toxic.

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Annual legume (Glycine max, or G. soja) of the pea family (see legume) and its edible seed. The soybean plant has an erect, branching stem, white to purple flowers, and one to four seeds per pod. It was probably derived from a wild plant of East Asia, where it has been cultivated for some 5,000 years. Introduced into the U.S. in 1804, it began to be farmed widely as a livestock feed in the 1930s, and the U.S. is now the world's foremost soybean producer. Economically the world's most important bean, the soybean provides vegetable protein for millions of people and ingredients for hundreds of chemical products, including paints, adhesives, fertilizers, insect sprays, and fire-extinguisher fluids. Because soybeans contain no starch, they are a good source of protein for diabetics. Processed for food, soybean oil is made into margarine, shortening, and vegetarian cheeses and meats. Soybean meal serves as a high-protein meat substitute in many food products, including baby foods. Other food products include soybean milk, tofu, salad sprouts, and soy sauce.

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or Indian licorice

Tropical plant (Abrus precatorius; family Leguminosae). Its hard, red and black seeds, though highly poisonous, are strung into necklaces and rosaries in India and other tropical areas. In India the seeds are also used as a unit of weight (ratti).

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Large plant (Ricinus communis) of the spurge family, probably native to Africa and naturalized throughout the tropics. It is grown commercially for the pharmaceutical and industrial uses of its oil and for use in landscape gardening because of its handsome, giant, fanlike leaves. The bristly, spined, bronze-to-red clusters of fruits are attractive but are often removed before they mature because of the poison concentrated in their mottled, beanlike seeds. There are hundreds of natural forms and many horticultural varieties of this species.

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or black-eyed pea

Any of the cultivated forms of the annual legume Vigna unguiculata. The plants are believed to be native to India and the Middle East but in early times were cultivated in China. The compound leaves have three leaflets. The white, purple, or pale-yellow flowers usually grow in twos or threes at the ends of long stalks. The pods are long and cylindrical. In the southern U.S. the cowpea is grown extensively as a hay crop, as a cover or green-manure crop, or for the edible beans.

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Soft, bland, custardlike food product made from soybeans. Believed to date from China's Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220), tofu is today an important source of protein in the cuisines of East and Southeast Asia. It is made from dried soybeans that are soaked in water, crushed, and boiled to produce a solid pulp and liquid soy “milk.” Coagulants are then added to the milk to separate the curds from the whey. The resulting soft cakes are cut into squares and stored in water.

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Seed or pod of certain leguminous plants (see legume). The mature seeds of the principal food beans, except soybeans, are similar in composition, though they differ widely in eating quality. Rich in protein and providing moderate amounts of iron and vitamins B₁ and B₂, fresh or dried beans are used worldwide for cooking. Varieties differ greatly in size, shape, colour, and tenderness of the immature pods. The common string, snap, or green bean (Phaseolus vulgaris) of Central and South American origin is the dominant edible-podded bean in the U.S., second to the soybean in importance. Third in importance is the broad, or fava, bean (Vicia faba), the principal bean of Europe. The lima bean (P. limensis), of Central American origin, is commercially important in few countries outside the Americas. The scarlet runner bean (P. coccineus) is native to the New World tropics and is grown in Europe for its attractive flowers and fleshy immature pods. The mung bean, or green gram (P. aureus), is native to India and grown extensively in the Orient for food.

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(born 1825?, Mason county, Ky., U.S.—died March 16, 1903, Langtry, Texas) U.S. justice of the peace and saloonkeeper. He left Kentucky in 1847 and moved from town to town, killing at least two men in duels, before settling in Texas. During the American Civil War he first served with Confederate regulars and then was a blockade runner in Texas, becoming so prosperous that he was able to live at ease in San Antonio for some 16 years. In 1882 he moved to a site on the lower Pecos River that he named for Lillie Langtry, opened a saloon, and dispensed hard, commonsensical, and prankish rulings as an unofficial magistrate, styling himself the “law west of the Pecos.”

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(born 1825?, Mason county, Ky., U.S.—died March 16, 1903, Langtry, Texas) U.S. justice of the peace and saloonkeeper. He left Kentucky in 1847 and moved from town to town, killing at least two men in duels, before settling in Texas. During the American Civil War he first served with Confederate regulars and then was a blockade runner in Texas, becoming so prosperous that he was able to live at ease in San Antonio for some 16 years. In 1882 he moved to a site on the lower Pecos River that he named for Lillie Langtry, opened a saloon, and dispensed hard, commonsensical, and prankish rulings as an unofficial magistrate, styling himself the “law west of the Pecos.”

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Bean is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of the family Fabaceae (formerly Leguminosae) used for human food or animal feed.

Although "beans" usually means the seeds of bean plants, it can also mean (especially in the US) the whole young pods of bean plants, which if picked before the pods ripen and dry, can be tender enough to eat whole, whether cooked or raw. Thus the word "green beans" means "green" in the sense of unripe (many are in fact, not green in color), as the beans inside the pods of green beans are too small to comprise a significant part of the cooked fruit.

Terminology

The term "bean" originally referred to the seed of the broad bean, but was later expanded to include members of the genus Phaseolus, such as the common bean and the runner bean, and the related genus Vigna. The term is now applied in a general way to many other related plants such as soybeans, peas, lentils, kidney beans, chickpeas (garbanzos), vetches and lupins.

"Bean" can be used as a near-synonym of "pulse", an edible legume, though the term "pulses" is usually reserved for leguminous crops harvested for their dry grain and usually excludes crops mainly used for oil extraction (like soybeans and peanuts) or those used exclusively for sowing purposes (such as clover and alfalfa). Leguminous crops harvested green for food, such as snap peas, snow peas, etc., are classified as vegetable crops.

In English usage, the word "beans" is also sometimes used to mean the seeds or pods of plants that are not in the family Leguminosae, but which bear a superficial resemblance to true beans, for example coffee beans, castor beans and cocoa beans (which resemble bean seeds), and vanilla beans (which resemble the pods).

History

Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants, broad beans having been grown at least since ancient Egypt, and the common bean for six thousand years in the Americas.

Many modern dry beans come from old-world varieties of broad beans, but most of the kinds commonly eaten fresh come from the Americas, being first seen by Christopher Columbus during his conquest of a region of what may have been the Bahamas, where they were grown in fields.

One especially famous use of beans by pre-Columbian people is the Three Sisters method of companion plant cultivation:

On the east coast of what would come to be called the United States, some tribes would grow maize (corn), beans, and squash intermingled together, a system which had originated in Mexico. The corn would not be planted in rows as it is today, but in a checkerboard/hex fashion across a field, separate patches of one to four stalks each.

Beans would be planted around the base of the developing stalks, and would vine their way up as the stalks grew. All American beans at that time were vine plants, "bush beans" having only been bred more recently. The cornstalks would work as a trellis for the beans, and the beans would provide much-needed nitrogen for the corn.

Squash would then be planted in the spaces between the patches of corn in the field. They would be provided slight shelter from the sun by the corn, and would deter many animals from attacking the corn and beans, because their coarse, hairy vines and broad, stiff leaves are difficult or uncomfortable for animals like deer and raccoons to walk through, crows to land on, et cetera.

Beans were an important alternative source of protein throughout old and new world history, and still are today. There are over 4,000 cultivars of bean on record in the United States, alone.

An interesting modern example of the diversity of bean use is 15 bean soup, which, as the name implies, contains literally fifteen different varieties of bean.

Types of beans

As illustrated by 15 bean soup, there is a great variety of beans types, including:

• Vicia
• Faba or broad bean
• Vigna
• Aconitifolia or Moth bean
• Angularis or azuki bean
• mungo or urad bean
• radiata or mung bean
• umbellatta or rice bean
• unguiculata or cowpea (includes the black-eyed pea, yardlong bean and others)
• Cicer
• arietinum or chickpea (also known as the garbanzo bean)
• Pisum
• sativum or pea
• ''Lathyrus
• Lathyrus sativus (Indian pea)
• Lathyrus tuberosus (Tuberous pea)
• Lens
• culinaris or lentil
• Lablab
• purpureus or hyacinth bean
• Phaseolus
• acutifolius or tepary bean
• coccineus or runner bean
• lunatus or lima bean
• vulgaris or common bean (includes the pinto bean, kidney bean, caparrones, and many others)
• Glycine
• max or soybean
• Psophocarpus
• tetragonolobus or winged bean
• Cajanus
• cajan or pigeon pea
• Stizolobium
• spp or velvet bean
• Cyamopsis
• tetragonoloba or guar
• Canavalia
• ensiformis or jack bean
• gladiata or sword bean
• Macrotyloma
• M. uniflorum or horse gram
• Lupinus or Lupin
• L. mutabilis or tarwi
• Erythrina
• E. herbacea or Coral bean

Cultural aspects

The following traditional uses of beans refer to the broad bean.

• In some folk legends, such as in Estonia and the common Jack and the Beanstalk story, magical beans grow tall enough to bring the hero to the clouds.
• The Grimm Brothers collected a story in which a bean splits its sides laughing at the failure of others.
• Dreaming of a bean is sometimes said to be a sign of impending conflict, though others said they caused bad dreams.
• Pliny the Elder claimed that beans act as a laxative. He may have been referring to the seeds of the castor oil plant, which contain oils used as laxatives in ancient India.
• European folklore claims that planting beans on Good Friday or during the night-time is good luck.
• "Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit" is a children's song about the flatulence often experienced after eating beans. The song is noteworthy for correctly identifying the bean as a fruit, not a vegetable. Yet beans, along with many other fruits, are regarded as vegetables due to their common usage as such “”. The decision to classify certain fruits as vegetables was officially resolved in 1893 when the Supreme Court unanimously decided the tomato was a vegetable, at which time Justice Gray also clarified the status of cucumbers, squash, peas and beans as vegetables.

“ ”. This distinction is important in planning nutritionally balanced meals and is supported in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Agriculture in which legumes (dry beans) are designated as a subgroup within the Vegetable Group “ ”, and in the MyPyramid Food Plan in which dry beans and peas are part of the Vegetable Group “ ”.

• In Japanese, "mame" (豆, マメ = "bean") may also mean something small. "Mame Chishiki" (豆知識), a Japanese phrase, which literally means "bean knowledge" (not "knowledge of beans"), is used to indicate any random trivia or miscellaneous knowledge displayed. The Japanese name for the Japanese beetle is "mamekogane" (マメコガネ), meaning "small beetle".
• In New Orleans, serving a meal of black-eyed peas on New Year's Day is thought to bring good luck in the upcoming year.
• In Malta, eating lentils on New Years day is said to bring good fortune in terms of money for the coming year
• In Nicaragua, newly weds are given a bowl of beans for good luck.
• In Aruba, boiled beans mixed with zinc phosphide are seen as a means of cheap Rodenticide.
• In Italy, eating lentils on New Years night is said to bring good fortune in terms of money for the coming year.

Toxins

Some kinds of raw beans and especially red and kidney beans, contain a harmful toxin (the lectin Phytohaemagglutinin) that must be destroyed by cooking. A recommended method is to boil the beans for at least ten minutes; undercooked beans may be more toxic than raw beans. Cooking beans in a slow cooker, because of the lower temperatures often used, may not destroy toxins even though the beans do not smell or taste 'bad' (though this should not be a problem if the food reaches boiling and stays there for some time).

Fermentation is used in some parts of Africa to improve the nutritional value of beans by removing toxins. Inexpensive fermentation improves the nutritional impact of flour from dry beans and improves digestibility, according to research co-authored by Emire Shimelis, from the Food Engineering Program at Addis Ababa University. The study is published in the International Journal of Food Science & Technology. Beans are a major source of dietary protein in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. (Sub Saharan Africa page, Science and Development Network website)

Flatulence

Many edible beans, including broad beans and soybeans, contain oligosaccharides (particularly Raffinose and Stachyose), a type of sugar molecule also found in cabbage. An anti-oligosaccharide enzyme is necessary to properly digest these sugar molecules. As a normal human digestive tract does not contain any anti-oligosaccharide enzymes, consumed oligosaccharides are typically digested by bacteria in the large intestine. This digestion process produces flatulence-causing gases as a byproduct. This aspect of bean digestion is the basis for the children's rhyme "Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit."

Some species of mold produce alpha-galactosidase, an anti-oligosaccharide enzyme, which humans can take to facilitate digestion of oligosaccharides in the small intestine. This enzyme, currently sold in the U.S. under the brand-name Beano, can be added to food or consumed separately. In many cuisines beans are cooked along with natural carminatives such as anise seeds, coriander seeds and cumin.

Other strategies include soaking beans in water for several hours before mixing them with other ingredients to remove the offending sugars. Sometimes vinegar is added, but only after the beans are cooked as vinegar interferes with the beans' softening.

Fermented beans will not produce most of the intestinal problems that unfermented beans will, since bacteria can consume the offending sugars.

Production

Brazil Is world leader in production of Dry Bean followed by India and then China.

Top Ten Dry Bean Producers — 2005
Country	Production (Int $1000)	Footnote	Production (MT)	Footnote
	1,340,094	C	3,076,010
	1,263,414	C	2,900,000	F
	914,886	C	2,108,500	*
	675,273	C	1,550,000	F
	609,994	C	1,400,160	F
	515,943	C	1,184,280
	237,435	C	545,000	F
	135,055	C	310,000	F
	135,055	C	310,000	F
	130,698	C	300,000	F
No symbol = official figure,F = FAO estimate, * = Unofficial figure, C = Calculated figure; Production in Int $1000 have been calculated based on 1999-2001 international prices Source: Food And Agricultural Organization of United Nations: Economic And Social Department: The Statistical Devision

China Is world leader in production of Green Bean followed by Indonesia and then Turkey.

Top Ten Green Bean Producers — 2005
Country	Production (Int $1000)	Footnote	Production (MT)	Footnote
	1,030,780	C	2,381,300	F
	364,063	C	830,000	F
	243,440	C	555,000
	184,225	C	420,000	F
	105,315	C	240,100
	94,305	C	215,000	F
	87,882	C	200,356
	43,863	C	100,000	F
	43,863	C	100,000	F
	42,617	C	97,160	F
No symbol = official figure,F = FAO estimate, * = Unofficial figure, C = Calculated figure; Production in Int $1000 have been calculated based on 1999-2001 international prices Source: Food And Agricultural Organization of United Nations: Economic And Social Department: The Statistical Devision

See also

• Common bean
• Pulses
• List of edible seeds
• Baked beans
• Fassoulada

Notes and references

External links

• Everett H. Bickley Collection, 1919-1980 Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.
• Discovery Online: The Skinny On Why Beans Give You Gas
• Bulgarian Guide: Bean Soup Recipe
• Fermentation improves nutritional value of beans
• Cook's Thesaurus on Beans