من حقولنا: البازيلا والفول

A Short, Sweet Season

Fresh peas and fava beans share a problem: they are at their best for a very short time, and they start turning the moment they are picked. The sugars in a fresh pea begin converting to starch within hours. A young fava is sweet and tender one week and tough the next.

This is exactly the kind of crop a long supply chain ruins. By the time market peas reach most kitchens, the sweetness is gone.

Fool Akhdar

Young fava pods — fool akhdar — are tender enough to eat raw, straight from the pod, with a pinch of salt and a little olive oil. It is one of the simplest pleasures of a Lebanese spring, and it only works when the beans are genuinely young.

Peas are the same story: at their peak they are sweet enough to eat raw; a few days past it and they need cooking to be worth eating.

Why We Grow Them

There is no trick to fixing an old pea. The only answer is to pick it young and move fast — which is the one thing growing our own actually lets us do.