Dry Leonforte Broad Bean can be eaten all year long!
Origin
Leonforte Broad Bean, also called Turkish bean, is a variety of fava bean that still now a day is being cultivated manually in Leonforte, Sicily, and because of its quality, is now a Slowfood Presidium. The sowing is between November and December and from May on there is the harvesting process, that terminates with exsiccation. This type of legume has a very ancient origin, at least 5.000 years, and it is very peculiar, but in the last 30 years, its production diminished progressively, because of the meccanization of cultures. Among the producers there are Agricola Leonforte and Agricola Mitera, that still now a day cultivate the passion for this product.
Cookit
Leonforte Broad Bean can be commonly found in supermarkets dry, and it is possible to eat it in many different ways. In March, you can eat them fresh, and they are perfect with onions and pecorino. If you fry them with oil, pancetta and onions you obtain frittedda, a typical dish from Leonforte. If you want to eat them dry, they can accompany many recipes, especially local ones like pasta ccu’ i favi a du’ munni (polenta with wild fennels and fava beans flour), frascatula (Sicilian polenta) and maccu (Sicilian soup). But they are perfect even eaten raw, naturally, as a healthy snack.
Did you know
In the past it was cultivated also because where you cultivate fava bean, the soil was more fertile, and there is a saying is Sicily “a favata cummatti cha malannata”, which means, wherever you cultivate fava beans, something else always grows, even if the weather was not the best one. Fava beans are full of proteins and minerals, that’s why people have been calling them “poor’s meat”.
