The recent Dried Beans topic got me more thinking about beans in China. Although fresh beans are considerably easier to find, China of course also does them dried. I’ve always shied away from dealing with them here for one main reason – nomenclature.
Many beans have multiple names in Chinese. I know three names for ‘broad beans’, Vicia faba, ‘蚕豆' (cán dòu), '胡豆' (hú dòu) or '罗汉豆' (luó hàn dòu), but then I also know three English names ‘broad beans’, ‘fava beans’ or ‘faba beans’. Chickpeas aka garbanzo beans, Cicer arietinum, also has two names in Chinese, '鹰嘴豆' (yīng zuǐ dòu) and 埃及都 (āi jí dū). In any one market, different vendors may use one or the other or even names from their dialect or any of China’s 600 languages!
More troublesome, however, is that often one Chinese name refers to what most westerners consider to be several different beans. I’ve pretty much given up asking for ‘kidney beans’ by any of the two Chinese names I know, as I never know what I’ll be given.
However, I’ve decided to bite the bullet and have a stab at trying to make some sense of the dried beans other than lentils in China. I’ll start tomorrow probably with what is by miles the most important bean, maybe not only in China but the world.
