Kia ora, I have an old book published in 1978 by Michael Joseph Ltd, London. As I typed the name I wanted to add Savage – you’ll know why. The book is called Gardener’s Delight and written by John Seymour. I looked up broad beans.
The Broad Bean is what bean feasts were made of, and the bean feast has a very ancient history, for it was common in antiquity to have a feast with beans after a funeral. (Oh no, think of all the farting – no don’t think of it, oh and what if anyone lit a match? No don’t go there…R)
There were also many sinister beliefs, one being that the spirits of the dead resided in them. Pythagorus believed this and would on no account eat beans. Or, alternatively (see above) Mrs Pythagorus said, ‘It’s beans or bed, Pythie, your choice.’
The Romans had a proverb, abstineto a fabis – abstain from beans – this was derived from their method of voting by casting beans into a bowl – it was simply an injunction to have nothing to do with politics. Yes,the Romans might have had a word for it but we must still vote.
The richness of the scent of broad beans flowers caused some to say that if you slept in a bean field you would go mad. My feeling is that if you slept in a bean field at this time of the year you would already be mad so you couldn’t blame the beans.
My broad beans are doing very well, luxuriant actually. They weren’t planted when the moon was blue either. They were planted on Anzac Day. Why? Because that’s when you plant broad beans, silly.
