(Image taken from Wikipedia -Lígia Prado)
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Many people have a misunderstanding that the common white bean paste in Chinese cakes is made of shelled mung bean kernels. Although the taste is really similar, it is actually made of white beans, which is a green manure crop and originated in Central and South America.
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White beans, also known as butter beans, are called Jack-bean in English. It is a green manure crop, and its stems and leaves can be used as fertilizer or livestock feed. According to Japanese Wikipedia, the name of Brazil is sword bean feij? O-de-porco, which means "pig beans". Besides beans, tender pods can also be used for cooking or miso, which can be said to be a practical crop that can be used all over the body.
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Because the shell of white beans is hard, some businessmen have a whim to print blessings on them with lasers and sell them, which are called "magic beans" in the market; There are also red varieties of sword beans, called red sword beans. Their fruits are bigger than white sword beans and are often made into magic beans. When people visit old streets all over the country, they often see this novelty.
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In addition to making white bean paste, white bean fruit can also be used as a substitute for coffee beans or as medicine. The introduction of white beans into China society can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty. The earliest documentary record is Compendium of Materia Medica, which is included in the classification of cereals. Taiwan Province Province was introduced from the United States in modern times, mainly as green manure, which was once very common, but it has been rarely planted in recent years.
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"Compendium of Materia Medica" describes sword beans as follows: tender boiling, dipping in sauce and honey frying are all good. When you are old, you will have a child, the thumb is so big and reddish. Cook with pork and chicken, You Mei. It can be seen that the status of sword beans in the daily diet of the Ming Dynasty is a bit like the role of black beans in the Brazilian diet now. They can be used as sweets, but they can also be cooked with meat. For example, Brazilian black bean rice is to cook black beans and all kinds of meat and pour them on rice.
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