Seasonable in July and August.
NUTRITIVE PROPERTIES OF THE BEAN.—The produce of beans in meal is, like that of peas, more in proportion to the grain than in any of the cereal grasses. A bushel of beans is supposed to yield fourteen pounds more of flour than a bushel of oats; and a bushel of peas eighteen pounds more, or, according to some, twenty pounds. A thousand parts of bean flour were found by Sir II. Davy to yield 570 parts of nutritive matter, of which 426 were mucilage or starch, 103 gluten, and 41 extract, or matter rendered insoluble during the process.
BROAD BEANS A LA POULETTE.
1093. INGREDIENTS.—2 pints of broad beans, 1/2 pint of stock or broth, a small bunch of savoury herbs, including parsley, a small lump of sugar, the yolk of 1 egg, 1/4 pint of cream, pepper and salt to taste.
Mode.—Procure some young and freshly-gathered beans, and shell sufficient to make 2 pints; boil them, as in the preceding recipe, until nearly done; then drain them and put them into a stewpan, with the stock, finely-minced herbs, and sugar. Stew the beans until perfectly tender, and the liquor has dried away a little; then beat up the yolk of an egg with the cream, add this to the beans, let the whole get thoroughly hot, and when on the point of simmering, serve. Should the beans be very large, the skin should be removed previously to boiling them.
Time.—10 minutes to boil the beans, 15 minutes to stew them in the stock.
Average cost, unshelled, 6d. per peck.
Seasonable in July and August.
ORIGIN AND VARIETIES OF THE BEAN.—This valuable plant is said to be a native of Egypt, but, like other plants which have been domesticated, its origin is uncertain. It has been cultivated in Europe and Asia from time immemorial, and has been long known in Britain. Its varieties may be included under two general heads,—the white, or garden beans, and the grey, or field beans, of the former, sown in the fields, the mazagan and long-pod are almost the only sorts; of the latter, those known as the horse-bean, the small or ticks, and the prolific of Heligoland, are the principal sorts. New varieties are procured in the same manner as in other plants.