chickpeas
When I started thinking about this blog, I asked many of my friends what their favorite beans were. Almost all of them, coming from South Asian, French and Italian, Jewish, and just plain white backgrounds, said chickpeas. This speaks to the incredible ubiquity and versatility of chickpeas, which are found in many forms and in many cuisines around the world. Also known as garbonzo beans in Hispanic regions, these mighty beans are not only universal across space, but across time as well. In fact, they were one of the first crops in the history of agriculture to be domesticated around 10,000 years ago, along with barley, lentils, peas, and flax [1]. 7,500 year old chickpea seeds have been found in the Middle East, before the bean made its way to India as early as 2000 BC [2]. Ironically, despite their popularity, the origin of their unusual moniker remains a mystery to many chickpea lovers. Unlike black or red beans, for example, the name "chickpea" seems to have little t
