Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

homestead - [Homestead] More on Favas (was Ethnicity/Tortillas)

homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Homestead mailing list

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: Bill Jones <billj AT harborside.com>
  • To: Homestead mailing list digest <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] More on Favas (was Ethnicity/Tortillas)
  • Date: Sat, 14 Apr 2007 11:15:50 -0700

The early etymology of "faba" is interesting. To account for Russian "bob" linguists postulate a reduplicated form [bhabha*]. It even obeys a rule of Indo-European phonetics: when two aspirated sounds like [bh] occur in successive syllables, the second loses its aspiration. So this accounts for why we don't see Latin [fafa], since the form it descended from was actually [bhaba*], and only the aspirated [bh] becomes Latin [f]. The sounds [b] and [bh] merge in Slavic to become [b], accounting for Russian "bob".

I began to doubt the Greek origin of Italian "fagiolo" at one point, wondering why it couldn't just be some homegrown Roman word like [fabiolus]. I looked in the Roman cookbook by Apicius, and it cleared everything up. He calls dry favas "fabae" of course, and uses "fabaciae" (compare Spanish "habichuela" from [fabakiola*]) for green favas. He praises the "fabaciae" from Baia, in the province of Campania, for what I presume must be their especially large size; I doubt folks took large favas for granted back then. Separate recipes call for "phaseoli" (translated as green string beans). The translator's note says they're kidney beans, but to anyone's knowledge this cannot be so. It must refer to the form of fava beans we haven't discussed yet: the small tender pods. Apparently the custom of eating them this way did come from Greece (there's a parallel here with sweet corn vs. dry corn, where more affluent farmers can afford to harvest their crops as early tender vegetables, instead of waiting for the starchy staple crop). Fava pods must be really young or they become spongy. They remind me a little of roses in aroma. The Romans made a dish called "conchiclum" in which large dry favas are cooked and skinned, and mixed with separately cooked fava pods, much like a modern 3-bean salad.

The key to understanding the derivation of Spanish "frijol", Portuguese "feijoa" and French "flageolet" is that they're all derived from the Vulgar Latin form fajol-*, from "fasioli" ("phaseoli"). It was pronounced with a [j] sound just like Italian "fagiolo" today. It's often true that the Vulgar Latin word is exactly like the present-day Italian word. It's very easy to insert an [r] sound into the syllable [fa] because the front part of the tounge doesn't do anything. Many Spanish words end in "-e" where Italian has an "-o". And so the first uniquely Spanish pronunciation was frajole*. The rest of the sound changes that follow have parallels in many other words: frajole* > fraijole* > frejole* > frijol (with the accent always on the [o]). The [j] sound softens a century or two eariler than the same process in French, pronounced as in "vision" around the time of El Cantar de Mio Cid, the classic work in Old Spanish. Later, the Spanish "j" merged with "x" (pronounced "sh") to become the modern guttural sound. A shift in meaning also occurred where [fajol-*] seems to refer to green shelled favas, replacing the old word "fabaciae" (later expanding to mean any cooked bean dish made from the seeds). The edible pods came to be referred to with diminutives like "flageolet" and "fagiolini" and "habichuelas".

I keep forgetting to mention my favorite form of favas of all. And they're the easiest to prepare. Large dry favas are soaked until almost sprouting and then deep-fried until crisp, like Corn-Nuts. I've had these from the Chinese market, with no seasoning, and from the Mexican market (with salt and chile, but I could have made better). They're preserved and ready to eat, and there's no bother with all that skinning. The crispy brown skins add to the crackly crunch.

Bill
S. Oregon coast



  • [Homestead] More on Favas (was Ethnicity/Tortillas), Bill Jones, 04/14/2007

Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page