Some beans, m'lord

  Back to history today with a look at the rewards of gathering. Of all the gatherables, the lowest hanging fruit aren't necessarily low hanging fruit. (What are you on about? -Ed). Some of the easiest and most rewarding were seeds grown in pods.

  They form the legume family and though they can be easily overlooked, they are a nutritional force to be reckoned with as I'll explain. Before I do, there's something else you should know; we're eating mutants. Many of the legumes that grace our tables are descended from mutants, bred for their imperfections.

Some beans, earlier.

  Take the humble broad bean as an example. Back before it was part of our diet, broad beans were only the size of a fingernail. The pods containing them would reach a point of ripeness and burst open, curling back to expose the beans which fell to the ground making them a real pain in the nads to collect.

  Occasionally, a faulty pod wouldn't open and this made life easy for us so they got gathered. Some beans got eaten, the others sown and as they were seeds from malfunctioning pods, that's what we ended up growing. As we preferred the bigger beans, as they got planted, so the size increased. A lot of plants have a similar story of being bred for their idiosyncrasies so we now have bigger, more convenient versions of the originals

  The other reason legumes were popular was they were a great meat substitute. Very nutritious with a high amount of starch, protein and minerals and very filling. They could be stored easily so if the hunters weren't doing too well or if you were poor, this was an easy, cheap and healthy ingredient.

Kirk out

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