I have been interested for some time in the Greek attitude towards beans. In all my research on the subject, all I have found is that historians simply say they do know why the Greeks regarded beans as something other than a normal edible plant.

To begin with, there were no beans at all in Europe until after the discovery of The New World. The word, when translated into English means fava and a fava bean is not, botanically a bean, but rather a legume like a pea.

As I have posted before, the eating of favas was forbidden within the holy precincts of Eleusis. This is because the fava was not considered to be a plant of the earth and therefore not appropriate to Demeter, Goddess Of The Earth. Why the Greeks considered the fava to be different is the unanswered question.

They may have noticed that a field sown with favas was more, not less, fertile in the following year as the legumes take nitrogen from the air and fix it into the soil. It is impossible that they could have had any knowledge of this process, but the results may have been observed. This is only a speculation and un provable.

The fact that the inside lining of the pod is always poisonous may have had something to do with the strictures against favas. A greek observing the death of someone who had just eaten favas might indeed shy away from them. This plus the genetic, “favism” which causes an allergic reaction and sometimes death in some Mediterranean peoples might have put all of them on their guard. It would most certainly have caused some superstitious reaction.

I did not know that Pythagoras did not allow favas in his diet. As the pythagorans were vegetarians, one wonders how they got their proteins. Favas are a source of protein. Pythagoras believed in reincarnation and that was the basis for not eating meat. It is possible that he thought some people would be reincarnated as fava beans. This would go along with your suggestion that some Greeks thought they contained the souls of the dead. Interesting as this puts them in the category of meat.

There may be some myth involved about which we do not know. It’s one of those odd things for which we have no good answer.