扁豆

[Erbse]

What is 扁豆 ?

My book says "green bean".

A google image search gives a healthy mix of pictures showing what I know as green bean and many other types of bean and a few pictures of peas.

Wikipedia however shows something i can't really identify: http://zh.wikipedia....dia.org/wiki/扁豆

Is 扁豆 in colloquial speech some kind of catch all term?

[li3wei1]

The problem may be in the English term. What in the US I remember being called a green bean is in the UK referred to as French bean or runner bean (these are different, but I believe they're both referred to as green beans in the States). Those terms are only good if you eat the bean fresh, pod and all. If you dry them and store them, then they can be navy beans, haricot beans, and possibly some other names (I'm not basing this on expertise, just a casual familiarity with the supermarket and gardening catalogues, feel free to correct me or add your own terms). I believe the same beans are what's used in baked beans.

So the Chinese term may refer to a specific plant, but finding a universally agreed English term to refer to that plant may be difficult.

[Erbse]

my definition of green bean is the same as wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia....wiki/Green_bean

English is not my mother tongue, I'm not familiar with the other types of bean you mentioned, but looked up definitions for them.

If I'm at a market in China and ask for 扁豆, what will they give me, or will the ask me to be more specific?

[Glenn]

It seems you may want to ask for 四季豆.

[jkhsu]

If I'm at a market in China and ask for 扁豆, what will they give me, or will the ask me to be more specific?

If you're at a market in China and ask for 扁豆, you're going to get this. It's not the french beans / green beans that you want. You probably want to ask for 刀豆 instead. 四季豆 will work also, although when I was in China (Shanghai), 刀豆 was the more common term. In the USA, 四季豆 is used quite often in Chinese restaurants to describe green beans.

Edit: Here's a link that says 刀豆 is used more in northern China and 四季豆 is used more in southern China. So I guess it depends on where you are. Perhaps others in China can confirm.

[skylee]

Perhaps someone could organise the information above and put it in the "Same thing, different names" thread?

[Glenn]

I just checked the Wikipedia page again, and apparently it's known by quite a few names: 也叫玉豆，又名帶莢豌豆、菜豆、刀豆、豆角、敏豆仔...

I don't know the regional differences, but I'm guessing 四季豆 is the most common (since that's what the page is named).

[jkhsu]

According to baike, it seems like 四季豆 can be used to describe 刀豆, but 刀豆 refers only the the green bean / french bean (used more in northern China) while 四季豆 is a more general term. This thread is becoming like the 油菜 thread.

青刀豆

http://baike.baidu.com/view/823071.htm

四季豆

http://baike.baidu.com/view/384257.htm

[Eranee]

扁豆 is called a 'hyacinth (haricot) bean' in English. It's very commonly used in Chinese medicine under the name 白扁豆。 Not sure if it's eaten often.

[Erbse]

Thanks a lot guys, that cleared up everything.

[jbradfor]

Also confusing to me is the different measure words used for various beans, at least according to MDBG: 顆, 棵, 噴