Yard-Long Bean

Also Long Bean, Asparagus Bean, Ban Gok

All cooking references that I have consulted describe the yard-long bean as a string bean extended, more or less. Well, it isn’t; not botanically or culinarily. It is in fact sister to the cowpea or black-eyed pea, which does not belong to the same genus as common bush or pole beans. Probably native to southern Asia (its culture is so ancient that none are sure), it is sensitive to cold, while the beans with which it is compared fare as well in a temperate environment. The yard-long bean is still cultivated for the most part in Asia, but also thrives in Indonesia, China, parts of Africa, some Pacific Islands, and into the Caribbean, where it is called bodi or boonchi. In northern China it is allowed to mature and produce peas that are similar to its blackeyed sibling of the American South. Its leaves are also edible, and extremely proteinrich. However, it is most often harvested early on for its pencil-slim, flexible, lengthy pods, which are generally picked when about 1½ feet long—although they may reach as much as 3 feet. (Their Latin subspecies name, by the way, means 1½ feet, while Vigna refers to a seventeenth-century Italian scientist, not a vine.)