they’re picked, tender low-fiber varieties
quickly become wrinkled and limp as they
lose moisture and sugars. Commercial
varieties have been bred with more fiber to
help them survive shipping and marketing
with a better shape.
Long or Yard-Long Beans Long beans,
sometimes called asparagus beans, do
sometimes reach a yard/meter in length.
They’re the thin, small-seeded pods of a
subspecies of black-eyed pea, a native of
Africa that was taken to Asia more than 2,000
years ago. Asian cultures already had a
number of excellent seed legumes but no
warm-climate vegetable legume, and it was
India or China that developed the yard-long
version of the black-eyed pea. These beans
have a higher fiber content than common
green beans and therefore a drier, firmer
texture when cooked. They’re also sensitive to
chilling (they keep best in the cold but