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