“Prendere due piccioni con una fava” (“catch two doves with one fava bean”) certainly has a more lyrical ring than “kill two birds with one stone.” The Italian expression has a direct link to rural life: most Umbrian farmers have rows of fava beans waving over their gardens in springtime, and not just chickens and ducks in the barnyard but also a pair or two of nesting doves for good eating.
Though the doves might desire those fave beans, they’ll be picked by the farmers for good springtime dinners, highlighted perhaps with a pasta of fave and other springtime vegetables or a side dish of fave, fresh red onion and fresh mint (potatoes, too, sometimes) – or a savory soup. The first and most tender fava beans are simply enjoyed right from the pod, paired with chunks of pecorino, a sharp sheep’s milk cheese, and local vino locale rosso as accompaniment.
Fava beans add the flavor of Umbria to any meal….
As you drive the Umbrian countryside in springtime, you might note vegetable gardens with tall rows of fava beans – and now and then, a farmer selling fave along the roadside, from the back of his putt-putting little Ape (those ubiquitous “scooter trucks”). You might pass, too, entire fields of both favino or favetta, fava bean varieties harvested for livestock,the plants crowned with white flowers, splashed with violet and a black spot in the center. Rich in protein, the favino and favetta beans (tiny and dark in color) prove excellent animal forage.
Along the road, you might see a farmer selling fava beans from his Ape truck
Fields of favette (for animal forage) below Assisi
Favette flowers
……and our goats relished the fava bean pods, though the donkeys disdained them, giving Pino a perplexing look as he offered them a taste.
The donkeys disdain the fave beans
…..but the goats love them!
The high-protein nourishing, filling fava beans – a “poor man’s food” – make it a star element of the Mediterranean diet. When we farmed here Umbria in the 1970’s, our rural neighbors’ fava production was in fact far more abundant than now: not only were fava beans grown for springtime eating, but for winter sustenance, too. Dried fava beans, picked mid-summer when the plants had dried, would be used in soups simmering on farmhouse wood stoves many a winter night. Now and then, we still savor the goodness in Peppa’s fava bean soup on a winter night:
It will soon be time…
In the meantime, here’s a pasta dish highlighting fresh fava beans:
Pasta con Fave e Piselli (Pasta with Fava Beans and Peas)
Ingredients (for 5- 6 persons):
- Extra-virgin olive oil, q.b. (“quanto basta” – or “as much as you need”)
- peas, fresh or frozen (1 – 2 cups)
- penne or rigatoni pasta (1 lb for very 5 persons)
- fava beans – about 1- 2 cups
- onion
- 1-2 garlic cloves
- prosciutto, 2 – 3 slices, diced
- tomato sauce – 1 bottle – or about 16 oz can
- salt, q.b.
- romano or pecorino cheese, q. b.
optional additions: zucchini, asparagus, hot red pepper
Shell fava beans. Cook them a bit in boiling salted water as they will need more cooking time than the peas. Drain. Set aside.
Finely-chop onion and sauté til golden (do not burn!) in olive oil. Add finely-diced prosciutto (or Italian bacon, pancetta, if prosciutto not available) and a diced garlic clove. Add peas and fava beans and gently simmer for a few minutes, adding about 1 to 2 c. hot water so that beans and peas start to cook down, though they should remain al dente (“to the tooth”, ie, chewy). Add one bottle tomato sauce (or canned tomatoes). Simmer for about 20 minutes, until legumes tender, though NOT mushy!
Serve over pasta which you have cooked in salted water til al dente, remembering to save the water when draining. If sauce needs more moisture, add a bit of the pasta water and/or a bit of olive oil. Generously sprinkle with grated romano or pecorino cheese (as sharper than Parmesan – perfect for this dish), mix and serve.
Optional addition: add zucchini and/or asparagus tips, chopped into small pieces and sautéed in olive oil with beans, peas – but after the legumes have cooked a bit as zucchini and asparagus will cook down much more quickly. A touch of hot red chili pepper is a nice addition to this dish! Another pasta dish with fave: fava beans simmered in olive oil with a bit of onion, a touch of diced pancetta (a ladle full of boiling water added while simmering)- and then served on spaghetti, topped with pecorino cheese.
Buon appetito!
