Lenticchia

Probably the pulse most used mankind, the lentil comes from a small climbing plant never growing more than 50 cm (20 inches) high. Its pods are rectangular and usually contain 4 lentils each. The plant originated in South Asia, but lentils arrived in the Mediterranean region a long time ago and the Romans immediately adopted them as a means of feeding their troops as well as solving the problem of feeding the poor. The name lentil comes from the Latin lens, which incidentally gave the name to the optical lens as it has a similar shape.