lent its name to a prominent Roman family:
Fabius comes from the fava bean, Lentulus
from the lentil, Piso from the pea, and Cicero
— most distinguished of them all — from the
chick pea. No other food group has been so
honored!
There are about 20 different species of
legume cultivated on a large scale (see box, p.
484). The oil crops, soybean and peanut, far
outdistance the legumes eaten more or less
whole; the oils are used industrially as well as
in the kitchen, and soybeans are a major
livestock feed in the United States.
Legume Structure and Composition
Legume seeds consist of an embryonic plant
surrounded by a protective seed coat. The
embryo in turn is made up of two large
storage leaves, the cotyledons, together with a
tiny stem. The cotyledons provide the bulk of
the nourishment, as the endosperm does in the