death from eating improperly cooked lima beans is not uncommon, because they

still grow older varieties.

Legume varieties

Of the 20 major species of legumes we find 7 that are reasonably well known in North

America:

. Common beans with about a dozen varieties

. Lentils—the most common variety is brown lentil

. Peas—yellow, green and black-eyed

. Chickpeas—we also know it as garbanzo beans by its Italian name

. Fava beans

. Soybeans—we use very little directly for food, but for its oil and in innumerable

soybean products

7. Peanuts—always popular in many forms; we use them as nuts

We cook beans, lentils, peas and chickpeas in many different dishes, fava beans much

less frequently, and usually as fresh young vegetables. We use soybeans in a variety of forms but

rarely by themselves—we combine them with other ingredients. The seventh popular legume, the

peanut, we actually use as a nut, so I included it in the chapter on nuts.

Here is a list of the 13 best known common beans among the hundreds of varieties:

Adzuki (or Chinese)

Pinto

Black (or turtle)

Cranberry

Red kidney (both light and dark)

Pink

Great Northern

Small red

Lima (both baby and large)

Mung (both green and black)

Navy

Small white (or California small white)

White kidney (or cannellini)

While most of the common beans look different, they have very similar flavor. You

probably could not tell one from another unless you were taste-testing them side by side.

Tradition, however, demands a specific bean for a specific dish. For a chili con carne, for

instance, we prefer pinto beans, for Boston baked beans, navy beans and for the Southern

hopping john, black-eyed peas. But don't be afraid to substitute with whichever you happen to

have on hand. It is what you add to them that gives the flavor definition.

TASTINGS The uncommon legumes

We have three edible legumes that are rare in cooking but may find their ways in

some of your kitchen. Carob, a substitute for chocolate (though the only thing

common with chocolate is the dark brown color), the spice fenugreek, common in

Indian cooking and mesquite, a tree whose seed is edible. Our culinary connection

with it is the wood, not the seed which gives a nice smoky flavor to foods when

we use it as charcoal or just chips on common charcoal.

The magical soybeans

Soybeans enjoy having their own privileged class. They are unique with an amazing

protein content of 34 percent, one of the highest of all foods (compare that to meats that range

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