Log of the Lowly Lima Legume
Submitted by bat400 on Friday, 13 July 2007 Page Views: 1286
Pre-ContactLima beans' history is ancient, exaltedOn the expressive pottery of the Mochica, a people who lived and thrived in the coastal valleys of northern Peru on the eve of the 15th-century Inca conquest, is a painted record of their daily lives and toils, the symbols they held dear and even the foods they ate, most noticeably the lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus), a distinctive relative of the common bean.
Named for the city where the Spaniards first found it, the lima is one of the oldest beans to come out of the Americas, with remains dating from 6000 to 5000 B.C. Scientists recognize two main branches of the genus domesticated in Latin America. The Central American types are small, while the South American beans consumed in ancient Peru are of the heftier variety we know today as lima beans.
One of my passions is pre-Columbian pottery, and I have found the Mochica pottery housed at the Larco Museum in Lima (Museo Arqueologico Rafael de Larco Herrera, museolarco.perucultural.org) to be among the most fascinating and revealing of the Americas. The pots with lima bean designs are intriguing: Some of the beans are anthropomorphic, painted with faces and fitted with legs and feet. It is believed these symbolize messengers or warriors.
In some pots, symmetrical rows of lima beans blanket the whole surface. The beans are mottled like some butter beans of the American South, particularly the so-called Florida butter bean (also called speckled lima bean).
For more, including the elite consumption of lima beans and yummy recipes, see Maricel E. Presilla's article in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
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