Broad beans with ham and marjoram

Best made when the beans are young and tender enough to include the pods, this is spoon-food, nothing fancy, to eat from a bowl in the sunshine. Bean pods, when fresh and young, have a delicate asparagus flavour with a faint glueyness, rather like okra. A mixture of older, middling and young beans, as happens naturally when you grow your own, gives a satisfying contrast of taste and texture. Vegetarians can omit the ham and double the marjoram.