Cooking With Butterbeans

Phaseolus lunatus is a legume. It is grown for its seed, which is eaten as a vegetable. It is commonly known as the lima bean or butter bean; it is also known as Haba bean, Pallar bean, Burma bean, Guffin bean, Hibbert bean, Sieva bean, Rangoon bean, Madagascar bean, Paiga, Paigya, prolific bean, civet bean, sugar bean or ??u ng? (Vietnamese).

Raw lima beans and butter beans contain linamarin, a cyanogenic glucoside. The beans are rendered safe when cooked. Low-linamarin varieties are typically used for culinary purposes. It is possible for one handful of raw beans to make a person violently ill.

The P. lunatus is of Andean and Mesoamerican origin. Two separate domestication events are believed to have occurred. The first, taking place in the Andes around 2000 BC, produced a large-seeded variety (Lima type), while the second, taking place most likely in Mesoamerica around AD 800, produced a small-seeded variety (Sieva type). By 1301, cultivation had spread to North America, and in the sixteenth century the plant arrived and began to be cultivated in the Eastern Hemisphere.

The small-seeded wild form (Sieva type) is found distributed from Mexico to Argentina, generally below 1600 meters above sea level, while the large-seeded wild form (Lima type) is found distributed in the north of Peru, between 320 and 2030 meters above sea level.

The Moche Culture (1-800 AD) cultivated lima beans and often depicted them in their art.Larco Hoyle, Rafael. Los Mochicas. Museo Arqueológico Rafael Larco Herrera. Lima 2001. ISBN 9972-934-10-1 During the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru, lima beans were exported to the rest of the Americas and Europe, since the boxes of such goods had their place of origin labeled "Lima - Peru", the beans got named as such.

The term butter bean is widely used for a large, flat and white variety of lima bean (P. lunatus var. macrocarpus, or P. limensisOxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition, various quotations). However, oftentimes "butter bean" only refers to a fresh or mealy textured bean.

In the Southern United States the Sieva type are traditionally called butter beans, also otherwise known as the Dixie or Henderson type. In that area, lima beans and butter beans are seen as two distinct types of beans. However, in highland areas of the southern Appalachians where Lima beans will not mature, certain traditional varieties of green/string aka runner beans are known as butter beans, causing some confusion.

In the United Kingdom, "butter beans" refer to either dried beans which can be purchased to re-hydrate (in the same manner as dried peas) or the canned (tinned) variety which are ready to use. In culinary use, lima beans and butter beans are distinctly different, the former being small and green, the latter large and yellow. In areas where both are considered to be lima beans, the green variety may be labeled as "baby" limas.

Both bush and pole (vine) varieties exist, the latter from one to four meters in height. The bush varieties mature earlier than the pole varieties. The pods are up to 15 cm long. The mature seeds are 1 to 3 cm long and oval to kidney shaped. In most varieties the seeds are quite flat, but in the "potato" varieties the shape approaches spherical. White seeds are common, but black, red, orange and variously mottled seeds are also known. The immature seeds are uniformly green.

Lima beans typically yield 2900 to 5000 kilograms of seed and 3000 to 8000 kilograms of biomass per hectare.

In Hu?, Vietnam, it is the main ingredient of the dish chè ??u ng?.

Despite the lima bean being named after the city of Lima, Peru, the two have distinctly different pronunciations in most dialects of the English language (and possibly other languages). The city's name is adapted from the Quechua language and is properly and popularly pronounced ['lim?], while the name of the bean (and also the city with the same name in Ohio) is usually pronounced ['la?m?].