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...The fava or Broad Bean (Vicia faba) as it is more commonly known in England, is an ancient crop probably first domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean area in the Neolithic period (The Kitchen Garden, D. Stuart 1984). Athenians used the Broad Bean at feasts dedicated to Apollo. Romans ate them at funerals because departed souls were said to reside in them. Pythagorus forbade his students from eating them because he believed they were made from the same putrid material from which, at creation, man was made. They were also used in the Roman voting system, a black bean for a no vote and a white bean for a yes. Broad Beans were a staple throughout the medieval period and monestary records record harvests in the hundreds of pounds. The 18th century gardener had a great number of varieties to choose from and this popularity seems to last well into the 19th century. Burr, in Field and Garden Vegetables of America (1865), lists 19 varieties of fava or English beans. One of the most popular seems to be the Mazagan. Joseph Prentis writes that; "The small Magazan (Mazagan) is to be preferred to any other kind that I have seen." Mary Randolph in Virginia Housewife (1824), agrees and writes of the mazagan bean; "This is the smallest and most delicate species of the Windsor bean." This bean apparently was developed in a Portuguese settlement of the same name which is located on the coast of Morroco.
