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In English, if we plant a dry bean

one dry bean

and harvest the result early, we get a green bean

one green bean

but if we wait with harvesting, we get dry beans again.

The green bean is cooked briefly and can be eaten raw, whereas the dry bean must be very thoroughly cooked.

What are these two food items called?

(A related question is "What is the difference between frijoles and habichuelas?". It's an interesting question with some great answers, but I'd like to organize the information in this other way.)

aparente001
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  • @walen - Could you share a picture of the alternative you have in mind? I'm confused. When I grow green beans in my garden, I harvest them as shown in the image I included in the question. I pick them when they are tiernos. Each pod contains a number if tiny future seeds. I cook them briefly in boiling water and stop the cooking with cold water. I eat the tiny future seeds along with the pods. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, waits to harvest until they're bigger (but the future seeds are still green) and then she boils them to death. (To each his own.) – aparente001 Jan 29 '18 at 13:02
  • If I planted that seed I would expect to get a different sort of bean which I think is called haba in Spanish (broad bean in English) not the haricot (also French bean) in the picture. – mdewey Jan 29 '18 at 13:48
  • @walen - my intention is to find names for the picture I posted, which in US English is called "green bean." The second image you posted isn't what I'm looking for. I hope that helps. – aparente001 Jan 29 '18 at 14:05
  • @mdewey - I sometimes plant something called in the US "Italian green bean." The pods are flatter and less round than the picture I posted in the question. Example: http://www.burpee.com/vegetables/beans/bean-early-bush-italian-prod000581.html. But if I harvest it green I would still call it "ejote" (in Mexican Spanish). Look, I'm trying to avoid getting into a lot of sub-cases here, and just get a world-wide overview that can be taken in at a glance. I want to keep it simple and elicit the localized words for the green young thing where you eat the whole case plus its contents, ... – aparente001 Jan 29 '18 at 14:10
  • versus the dry thing that you have to boil a long time before you can eat it. Please, everyone, let's not turn this into a doctorate-level treatment of hundreds of varieties of legumes. – aparente001 Jan 29 '18 at 14:11
  • @walen - When I eat a green bean (ejote is also how I think of it), I eat the pod plus its contents. (By the way, to my mind, this is the key difference between a grean bean and a green pea: with the exception of sugar snap peas and [Chinese] snow peas, fresh peas are eaten without the casing, or pod, no matter how young you harvest them.) – aparente001 Jan 29 '18 at 14:20
  • @walen - If you've understood what I'm after, then I hope you'll make any needed corrections to the answer -- much appreciated. – aparente001 Jan 29 '18 at 18:01

1 Answers1

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I am adding this summary following what was discussed in Let's use community wiki to summarize set of short region specific answers. Feel free to edit to add the term used in your country or region.

Put the seed first and the fresh vegetable second, please.

España

México

  • Dry: frijol
  • Green: ejote

Chile

  • Dry: poroto
  • Green: porotos verdes2

Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay

  • Dry: poroto
  • Green: chaucha

Perú

  • Dry: frijol
  • Green: vainita

Colombia

  • Dry: fríjol
  • Green: frijol verde / habichuela.

Venezuela

  • Dry: caraota
  • Green: habichuela

Notes:

1. en Galicia
2. casi nunca singular, una vaina trae varios

Source:

- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/judía

jacobo
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aparente001
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