Beans: A History

by Ken Albala

Whether refried, baked, falafelled, or complementing a nice Chianti, the humble bean has long been a part of gourmet and everyday food culture around the globe. As Ken Albala shows, though, over its history the bean has enjoyed more controversy than its current ubiquity lets on. From the bean's status as seat of the soul (at least, that's what Pythagoras thought) to seed of sin (or so said St. Jerome, who forbade nuns to eat beans because they "tickle the genitals"), Beans is a ripping tale of a truly magical fruit.

Genres: Food, History, Nonfiction, Microhistory, Food History, Cooking, Food and Drink

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Ken Albala, Professor of History at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, CA and Director of Food Studies in San Francisco, is the author or editor of 25 books on food. These include academic monographs, cookbooks, reference works and translations. He is also series editor of Rowman and Littlefield Studies in Food and Gastronomy. His current project is about Walking with Wine.

Reviews

[Happyreader]

Just nominated for an IACP award in the food reference category. Plus I like beans.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gets carried away in a few places, but those were skimmable; never got really "dry" as such. If you think the book might be interesting, you'd probably like it.

[Pancha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Albala explores the political, cultural, and linguistic history of our friend the bean. Each chapter focuses on a different type of bean, from the lentil (thought to be the first legume cultivated) to the soy bean (a much later edition to our tables, only having been cultivated a few thousand years ago), including a chapter on poison beans and cryptobeans. Interspersed with the history are quotes from medical texts, novels, songs, memoirs, travelogues, poems, and of course cookbooks. There are even recipes included, from Roman feasts to a modern bean fudge.

[Mark]

Everything you wanted--or did not want--to know about the history of the use of beans!

[Sunjay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot about beans! Though I think the fava bean chapter could have been about half as long

[Mauricio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting but lacks information of bean usage in many regions of the world.

[Chana Masaledar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beans have represented many different things over the centuries: daily staple for the whole society, particularly in India; reliable food for the poor; gassy embarrassment for the upwardly-mobile; symbol of primordial hardihood for the ancient Romans. In this book, Albala does a fine job investigating the social and botanical history of the bean family, including many of its lesser-known members. I recommend this book to all foodies, and to anyone who might be amused to know that Fabio, the Italian supermodel, has a name that means "bean."

[Vishal Katariya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyed this book, however it was a bit pedantic at times. However, I knew that going in. Also, if you're going to read a 200+ page book about BEANS, you've got to be prepared for some bean pedantry. When starting the book, I was afraid that it would be too Western-centric, despite the fact that most legume species in the world are not from the West. However, I felt like a number of cultures and histories were covered. Part of it also boils down to what documentation and historical text survives. Overall, a nice book if you like/love beans. Lots of fun nuggets and recipes too.

[Gabrielle · Rating 3 out of 5]

One of the perks of volunteering in the high school library, you come across odd books like this one, written by a food historian. He realized that there had not been a thorough history of the bean and so he wrote one. (Yes, I could almost say that with a straight face.)

If you are foodie, it may interest you. It would actually make a good magazine article, as some of the old recipies and writings on beans were a little dry and could be cut out, but overall the info was interesting.

[David Raffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the finest book I've ever read about the history of beans.
It has ancient philosophers, class divisions, and recipes.

[Gordon Woolley Jr. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book for the history of beans.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Food History

Ken Albala’s Beans: A History is one of those deceptively modest books that ends up reshaping how you think about the most ordinary things on your plate.

A bean—small, unpretentious, earthy—doesn’t carry the romantic aura of wine, tea, or coffee, nor the symbolic weight of sugar or salt.

And yet, as Albala demonstrates across cultures and centuries, beans have been at the very heart of human survival, culinary invention, and cultural meaning. This isn’t just the story of a humble legume; it’s the story of how people across time have grappled with nourishment, agriculture, poverty, and even morality, all through the lens of beans.

Albala is a historian of food with a gift for weaving together the scholarly and the anecdotal. In Beans, he ranges widely across the globe: from the lentils of the ancient Near East to the black beans of Latin America, from European peasant soups to Asian soy products. What unites these stories is the bean’s remarkable adaptability. Cheap to grow, rich in protein, and capable of being dried and stored for long periods, beans have been the cornerstone of subsistence diets for millennia. Entire civilisations could not have flourished without them.

But Albala is never content with the purely nutritional argument. He is fascinated by symbolism. In ancient Rome, beans were not just food but moral objects, associated with philosophers like Pythagoras, who supposedly forbade their consumption. In mediaeval Europe, beans fed monks and peasants, becoming emblems of simplicity and humility, but also of flatulence—a comic reminder that food always comes with a bodily reality. In the Americas, beans appear in myths of origin, intertwined with maize and squash as part of the “three sisters” agricultural trinity. Everywhere, they carry cultural charge far beyond their taste or texture.

One of the most engaging sections of the book deals with beans in the New World. Albala shows how indigenous traditions of beans met with European culinary habits, producing hybrid cuisines. Chili con carne, refried beans, cassoulet—all testify to the bean’s ability to migrate and transform. He also takes us into the world of soybeans in East Asia, which became not just a staple food but the basis for entire culinary systems—fermented into miso, pressed into tofu, brewed into soy sauce. The bean here becomes alchemy, a raw material turned into astonishing variety.

Albala has a knack for revealing contradictions. Beans are associated with poverty and peasantry, yet they also appear in refined cuisines when dressed up with spices or meat. They are symbols of frugality but also of conviviality, since bean stews often feed a crowd. They are mocked for their digestive side effects, yet prized for their health benefits. They are at once humble and indispensable.

The book also resonates with contemporary concerns. In an age of climate crisis and debates about sustainable diets, beans look less like peasant food and more like the future: low-impact, protein-rich, and adaptable. Albala doesn’t preach, but the historical sweep of his narrative makes clear that the return of beans to the centre of modern diets would not be a novelty but a restoration.

Stylistically, Beans is accessible and often witty. Albala clearly delights in the odd corners of culinary history, whether he’s quoting mediaeval recipe books or recounting bean-related folklore. The scholarship is solid, but the tone is playful enough to keep readers turning the pages. Like the best food histories, it leaves you hungry—not just for bean dishes but for the stories that surround them.

This is a quietly profound book, reminding us that even the most overlooked foods can carry the weight of civilisation. Albala turns the lowly bean into a lens through which to view human ingenuity, survival, and imagination. It belongs on the shelf alongside classics of food history—proof that sometimes the smallest foods yield the biggest stories.

[Greg]

It's not the most interesting book in the world and the title is lame. But there are some interesting tidbits for bean enthusiasts.

It's primarily about the origins of popular culinary beans and some exotic ones, and how bean-eating has been seen societally across the cultures.

I wanted more than that out of this book, though. There is a lot that you can say about legumes apart from that they've historically been seen as "the meat of the poor" and that they're a popular green manure.

It's maybe not my place to criticize the book for being what it is instead of what it's not, but making a book that rounds up the taxonomic and culinary history of beans by geographic region feels like playing very small ball with this topic. Beans are a topic so big that it justifies a polemical approach, a critique of anthropological and archaeological understanding, and modern culture in general.

But this book doesn't go there, so it doesn't get much past being an interesting collection of facts and recipes for a number of beans.

[Anise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating account of the human and natural history of pulse crops. One thing that I personally appreciate and think deserves recognition is the author's obvious love for the Latin language - he provides the botanical Latin names for all the plants he discusses, quotes Vergil in the original language, and provides a clever little take-off on the opening lines of the Aeneid in the preface, to boot.

The only thing I don't like about the book is the author's habit of not giving measurements in the recipes provided. His reasons for this are explained in the preface - cooking beans isn't an exact science, and the historical recipe books he used as sources don't specify measurements, either - but I still think that it wouldn't hurt to throw a line to people like me who can't cook without some idea of measurements. This is a very minor quibble, and I can say with certainty that I will come back to this book again.

[Anjar Priandoyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book, it is about 11 most important beans in the world. However, from my point of view the most important as Indonesian is soy bean which described very well in Chapter 12 as it can provide food and also fuel. The problem is within my self as I never tried Lentis, Lupine, and almost all 10 beans in the book. The only beans that I encounter maybe only Fava beans, and it is actually used as snack, not as source of protein (food).

It is interesting to learn about this plants, however its difficult to enjoy all part of the book as I dont have sufficient knowledge about beans. Maybe after I tried lentis and other west/south bean I will understand this book better.

[OvercommuniKate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well organized and informative. It was published in 2007 but you can only see its age in the section on soybeans as scientific studies have well advanced and debunked some previous myths around soy.

My question on how black beans got popular in East Asia is still unanswered, but I guess similar to the adzuki bean, historical knowledge of beans in East Asia that isn't soy is hard to come by. Especially because while we know Columbus brought back the black bean on his second trip, what happened to that set of beans is unknown.

[Esin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I will not recommend it. Topic is interesting yet how come there is a book that's talking about the Middle East and history and food, is talking about so many centuries and cultures yet in the first 3 chapters that I read, it does almost never mention Muslim countries or cultures; is talking about Arab scholars as "another Arab". The scholars whose translations of classical Greek pieces actually were the foundations of European thinking as we know it.. I couldn't finish, very weak and very Eurocentric work.

[Elze · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating little details about culinary tradition from around the world and great historical recipes.

Though, must say, that after a few hundreds of pages of beans, you do get tired a little by the topic... But this book can be read as a source of inspiration, choosing just one chapter at a time.

[Rogue Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exceptional coverage of the lowly bean, so delicious and so versatile. Funny that Albala was ready for his year of beans to be done by the end of the book. Some recipes and interesting coverage of heritage and unusual varieties.

[Anshuman Swain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Learnt a lot about the historical and cultural aspects of bran eating and the wild variety of beans throughout the world. The book was full of amazing facts, but could have been written better (and have a more overarching structure I felt). Still a great read!

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great history of the lowly beans that feed so many of us. Pretty good reading!

Full disclosure, this has the tiniest font I've seen in ages. I had to read this in the morning with the sun on the pages! If you also suffer from "old eyes", try to find this in e book or large print.

[Karen E Carter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written and fascinating. Who knew I would enjoy a book about beans so much.

[David Szatkowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book on the taxonomy, history, and use in cooking of, well, beans. A great bibliography is also available to those who wish further study.

[Lee (Rocky) · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is pretty much exactly what I expected it to be.

[Marc Hutton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wasn’t what I was looking for but interesting never the less. Gets to be a little repetitive at times and not as in depth as I wanted at others.

[Ann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting! Learnt a lot about beans

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative, with a good sense of humor.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's about beans. There's a lot of them. A whole hill, in fact.

[B. Rule · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject of this book is really interesting, as so many civilizations have depended on one or more cultivar of bean for cheap and plentiful sustenance. Each chapter of the book ostensibly describes one type of bean, although in practice there are a lot of half-baked odds and ends tossed into the ends of some chapters. The fundamental takeaway from the book is that beans have been looked down upon as food for the poor through most of human history, although they are occasionally elevated to the status of delicacies by the ultra-rich who have no fear that dining on such fare will taint them with associations of poverty. The exception to the rule is Asia, where soy has long been processed beyond all recognition into a variety of condiments and comestibles. The author provides short recipes at certain spots, usually drawn from historical sources but sometimes seemingly concocted by the author himself.

The main issue I had with the book is that it felt repetitive in parts, despite the brevity of the text. It felt like the author didn't provide much more depth of analysis than "beans are denigrated as poor food" and therefore quickly ran out of different ways to say this. The sections on non-Western cultures were much better as it felt like the author was more engaged and interested in really exploring how beans shaped the society. The other problem is that attention to detail or accuracy often seemed lacking. At one point, Albala makes reference to the famous scene in Silence of the Lambs on fava beans, but he says that Hannibal Lecter made the comment about a delivery boy. It was a census taker in the book and the movie, and it takes basically no effort to verify that. The lazy fact checking does not inspire confidence. That said, this is a relatively quick read on an important topic. Not the best single topic history or food book, but not the worst either.

[Sesana · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this may be the first non-Reaktion food history I've read this year. Very enjoyable. It made me hungry for chili, which is good in a book about beans. And I did make chili, and it was good. (Let's not get into whether or not beans belong in chili, strictly speaking. They go in my chili, and that's all that counts to me.) At any rate, it's divided into chapters based on type of bean, which means that some chapters were way longer than others. Probably the best way to do it, though. There are recipes scattered throughout, some of which are historical and presented as written. It's always interesting to read those old recipes.

(ETA: Going back through my reviews to organize stuff into shelves. Just remembering this book made me crave chili again.)