obscure-ish bean question--probably to post somewhere more suitable

[rugessnome]

I've found val beans among the Indian dals and never been quite sure what they were; yesterday I happened upon a sack of Portuguese feijão piedra(sp?) or rock beans, and to me they look really similar. I do remember there being some suggestions that val beans might be Lablab purpurea(/Dolchious lablab I'm butchering that :P), Hyacinth bean, and a few people online seem to vaguely think that's what feijão piedra are. Can anyone confirm?

Comments

[unspeakablehorror]

It seems like it may be a term that refers to more than one species of bean. Here's a couple sites that refer to val dal:

https://www.vegrecipesofindia.com/glossary-of-legumes-lentils-in-english-and-hindi/

https://pepkitchen.com/recipe/vaal-ni-dal-lima-beans/

sorry I became a bean nerd like nine years ago

[rugessnome]

I...should have mentioned that; I am aware that eg SWAD also sells lima beans (which I can recognize) as "val ranguni". But I'm not sure that there is a different second Indian* name for the beans resembling feijão piedra.

(and these look very different from other beans. They are round and almost soybean like in shape, but they have a prominent raised bit that wraps around the bean while the only prominent external feature of soybeans is what I think of as a slightly elongated (as vs. most of our Phaseolus vulgaris beans) hilum. (not dissimilar to my eye from those of Vigna species). This raised thing is a little reminiscent of a feature of fava beans in their peel, but it's raised instead of recessed, and I have never known fava beans to be that round.).

And the ambiguity does confuse the matter because searching certain phrases online turns up results claiming val beans are lima/butter beans (Phaseolus lunatus, and yes, the ones that are and are sold under that name are, but I don't believe the ones I'm asking about are**) or even fava beans (Vicia faba, and I really don't know if any are because while I can recognize favas, I haven't encountered them in an Indian context as yet, including--I claim--the ones I know only as val.)

...anyway I did finally buy some val a few weeks back though I haven't done anything with them yet.

*I know Indian isn't a language but I'm not sure which/what combo of transliterated language(s) food labels are written in. I think one blog maybe mentioned Gujarati in relation to these? Maybe it would be better to say here something like "Indian Grocery Supplier". c.f. iirc gai lan (sometimes known in English as Chinese broccoli but usually sold as gai lan as well), is a Cantonese name, even though China these days would prefer Mandarin as the country's lingua franca

**they may have been named after the/an- other val, hyacinth beans (and favas on that off chance) being native to somewhere in Africa or Eurasia c.f. "pomme de terre"/Erdapfel lit. "earth apple" for the American crop potato, or 西红柿 xihongshi "western persimmon" and 番茄 fanqie "foreign eggplant" for fellow American the tomato in China

Re: sorry I became a bean nerd like nine years ago

[unspeakablehorror]

Yeah, foods are often named after other foods, sometimes even ones they are not very similar to, so that can certainly make things more difficult for sure.