Shelled Leonforte broad bean 250 g

Diogenes Laërtius tells how Pythagoras, chased by his enemies, found himself in front of a field of broad beans. Forced to choose between trampling it or being caught and killed, he chose the latter. He had a horror of beans: he saw in the black spot on the white flower the mark of the gods of the underworld, and believed the plant’s hollow stem was a channel to the realm of the dead. Since the time of the Egyptian pharaohs, a seed shaped like both male and female genitals had made beans ambiguous, shameless and a source of mental disorder. Socrates claimed that Hercules loved them, but warned ordinary mortals that eating them stood in the way of seeking the truth.

In ancient Rome beans were rediscovered as “the meat of the poor”: nourishing and cheap, they fed athletes and commoners, soldiers, farmers and gladiators. Many families grew rich trading them, first of all the Fabii, who took their name from the precious legume. On solemn occasions beans were thrown to the crowd for good luck, and the Roman Senate voted by dropping black beans into the urn to dissent or white ones to say they were “in favour”.