FAVA - BROAD BEANS: Fava beans, aka broad beans, have a fascinating history. They have been part of the Mediterranean diet forever, albeit with some reservation. They were among the few plant-based foods prohibited by the ancient Greek mathematician Pythagoras, who had a large cult following and preached a vegetarian diet. Although fava beans are highly nutritious (and delicious), for some people, mostly in the Mediterranean, they trigger favism, which is the lack of the enzyme necessary to process and digest them. For a person lacking that enzyme, eating fava beans can cause fever, jaundice and anemia. But for most of us, luckily, the fava bean is one of the great Mediterranean beans, with countless dishes attesting to their culinary and dietary benefits. They’re very high in protein, can help build your body’s natural immunity, and can even help, like all beans, with weight loss. Pythagoras perhaps suffered from favism and so prohibited his followers from eating the beans. By some accounts, he died while being chased across a field of fava beans, perhaps weakened by just breathing in their pollen. We will never know…but in the meantime, for those of us – again the vast majority – the delicate fava bean is one of the Mediterranean’s greatest culinary gifts.