Long Beans

APPEARANCE: “Long” means 1 to 3 feet in length. They come in two colors: light green, known as baak dau gok or “white long beans”; and dark green, known as cheng dau gok or “green long beans”. Because they are small and round in cross section and so long, they actually look more like string than the short beans that Americans have named “string beans” because of the tough fibre running the length of some of them. (N.B. The Cantonese call this latter stringy bean yook dau.)

COMMENTS: Botanically, these beans differ in genus and species from string beans, and in fact they are the pod in which cowpeas or black-eyed peas grow. They have been cultivated in China since before recorded time. Patient, northern Chinese grow them to maturity for dry peas, while the southerners prefer to cook the immature pods.