Episode 3 English: Don't care a fig, ahm, bean?

Actually, it's other people who are supposed to learn something when they come to me for coaching or a literary event, aren’t they? And the fact that you learn the most when you teach is a bit of a truism that doesn't need to be sung from the rooftops. But recently, as the organiser and teacher of my literary Afternoon Tea, I had an eye-opening experience that included a delightful dive into a chain of widely ramified research (the infamous “rabbit hole”). It was so entertaining that I would like to share this experience here.

My theoretical, practical and entertaining event revolved around the well-known English fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk” and its many echoes in British culture. From a gardening perspective, the focus was on what to consider when sowing different seeds, and I had gathered lots of interesting facts about beans to complement the fairy tale with. And, of course, visual aids and seeds for sowing at home. All this was presented in style at a traditional British afternoon tea with scones, crumpets, and cucumber sandwiches.

Themed afternoon tea based on the fairy tale “Jack and the Beanstalk”

Historical comparative linguistics for entertainment?

When I talk about literature and language, it is particularly important to me to help my mentees to establish connections and to promote their affection and sensitivity for the target culture, which is usually the English or German language. This is not difficult in “Jack and the Beanstalk”, because the verse repeated three times by Jack's antagonist, the evil giant, is already quoted by Shakespeare: “Fee, fie, foe, fum - I smell the blood of an Englishman!” In German translations of “Hans und die Bohneranke”, this is preferably put into rhyme, e.g. “Fi, fei, fo, fann, ich rieche das Blut von 'nem kleinen Mann!“ (Fi, fei, fo, fann, I smell the blood of a little man!).

To this day, the fairy tale is one of the stories that are frequently retold and performed on theatre and musical stages in Great Britain during the winter season as a panto (short for pantomime). The individual elements of the fairy tale, such as a hen that lays golden eggs, are widely known. Pantos, incidentally, are theatre performances similar to the German fairy tales brought into theatre for children at Christmas. However, they are more exuberant than the traditional, rather serious German Christmas theatre of my childhood, with significantly more audience participation and the essential element of cross-dressing.

The little hen with the golden eggs ... (A stunt chicken was used for the setup and the feathered model was generously remunerated for the photo shoot with peas and sunflower seeds).

Despite my preference for broader contexts, I rarely go into details of historical comparative linguistics outside of university. Yet the early research of William Jones (18th century) on the relationship between Sanskrit, Greek, Persian and Germanic, or August Schleicher's “family tree theory” from the mid-19th century (roughly contemporaneous with Charles Darwin's “Origin of Species” from 1859) is a highly interesting chapter in the history of science. Admittedly, this is very far-fetched in the context of a literary tea party. Nevertheless, I sometimes find it worth mentioning that there are cognate words in language families, which are similar in all languages of a family or subfamily because they have been part of a common vocabulary for a very long time. This relationship shows how much can be learned about the circumstances of speakers of a particular language family only from considering the small vocabulary of cognate words. In the case of English and German, we are talking about the Indo-European language family.

Cognates reveal interesting similarities between Indo-European languages, ranging from words for family members (mother, father, daughter, son, sister, brother, etc.) to words for agriculture (plough, milk) and words for animals (dog, cat, cow, pig, ewe – the latter being a cognate for the now obsolete German Aue).

Down the rabbit hole: types of beans, varieties of beans, names for beans

And that was the moment during my research when I once again succumbed to the joy of linguistic phenomena: in a text about beans, I found a note that the word was a cognate of the West Germanic languages (well-known examples: English, German, Dutch, Afrikaans). So it wasn't just kinship terms or farming and livestock techniques that our ancestors shared. They also shared the consumption of beans. In addition, many peoples around the world still have a somewhat ambivalent relationship with this modest but reliable legume, which is easy to cultivate and has a lot to offer. This is evident in the abundance of names for the same bean variety and in the amusing bean-related topics. This is how my journey of discovery into the wonderful world of beans began.

Vicia faba with bumblebee

Beans are the fruits of very different plant genera, e.g. the Old World bean Vicia faba, known in German as Ackerbohne (literally arable bean). Then there are the beans of the genus Vigna, which are also widespread in Asia and Africa and are also native to the Old World (e.g. the species mung bean and adzuki bean). The economically important and very widespread New World beans of the genus Phaseolus, often represented by the species Phaseolus vulgaris, are also included. All of these, including peas and lentils, together form the group of legumes. Their fruits are also grouped together as pulses. Each genus in turn comprises a large number of species, which in turn have produced countless cultivated varieties, i.e. genetically stable varieties created through breeding. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which has made it its mission to preserve varieties unattractive for commercial use, contains more than 40,000 different cultivars of the species Phaseolus vulgaris (also garden bean or green bean) alone. An unimaginably long list of bean varieties! Even without a seed vault, beans and peas are among the highest-yielding seeds, which remain viable for several hundred to two thousand years. Even outside a refrigerated vault.

To complicate matters further, there are countless synonyms for each variety. For example, I found the names sow bean, pig bean, horse bean, cattle bean, fodder bean, puff bean, field bean, faba bean, faber bean, fava bean, large bean and fat bean for the Vicia faba referred to above as arable bean (these are my literal translations of the German names). I am sure there are many more regional names! The cultivation of the indigenous Central European bean species Vicia faba as food for humans and animals has been documented for around 3,000 years – which naturally left enough time and space for synonyms to develop.

In my own garden I grow the American bean Kentucky Wonder, a cultivar from the species Phaseolus vulgaris (garden bean, green bean, string bean, and fisole in Austria), which originally comes from Mesoamerica. It is also known as Old Homestead and Texas Pole in English-speaking countries. On a side note, it grows as a pole bean and needs support, while other varieties grow low as bush beans. I have also found another name for the Chilean Pepa de Zaballo, which I planted as a medium-sized runner bean: Tiger Eye. Unsurprisingly, both have variable spellings... (compare fava bean) If you're curious, the German online bean atlas https://www.bohnen-atlas.de/ currently lists 3,061 bean varieties, including a list of their various names.

Kentucky Wonder flower and young fruit

Jedes Böhnchen gibt ein Tönchen... (every little bean makes a little sound…) - Beans, beans, the magical fruit...

Thus, beans are a very widespread crop. They have a lot to offer in terms of nutrition (protein, fibre, iron and vitamins), but they also have some disadvantages (some beans contain substances that inhibit the absorption of important minerals in the human intestine; ripe beans contain heat-sensitive toxins and therefore have to be cooked before consumption).

This quickly led me to a world-famous phenomenon occurring after the consumption of pulses. I am referring to the bacterial breakdown of complex sugars (oligosaccharides) contained in legumes in the human intestine, which manifests itself in increased gas production and flatulence after eating beans. This has led to culinary countermeasures in many cultures, which are intended to mitigate gas production beyond their seasoning effect. In Northern Europe, savory (Satureja hortensis) is often used in the preparation of beans, in the Middle East, cumin (the fruit of the plant Cuminum cyminum), in Japan, the seaweed kombu (such as Laminaria japonica) and in India, the plant resin asafoetida (also known as devil's dung – incidentally, many languages agree on this name, which alludes to the extremely strong smell of the resin: Fee, fie, foe, fum ...).

Fart literature

And so, while browsing Wikipedia, I finally found it: fart literature. Unfortunately, there is no German entry on this topic; the other - Russian, Spanish and French - entries are very short and uninformative. However, those who understand English can educate themselves and have a good laugh under the entry “Flatulence humour”.

As this is a predominantly oral genre, there are few written sources from older literature. This I found surprising, given such a stimulating and rich topic. It probably has to do with the fact that farting is considered rude in many cultures, i.e. it is associated with shame. This naturally hampers written processing of the topic or limits it to literary niches. In my opinion, this is also underlined by the sparse entries in Wikipedia, which contrast with the obvious widespread distribution of oral and visual fart literature. However, Aristophanes' comedies seem to be a rich exception as texts that are close to oral tradition. In English literature, authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer, Mark Twain and Herman Melville are mentioned. Fans of light humour will certainly find something to their liking here and enjoy the many links.

As a native speaker of German, I immediately thought of Heinz Erhardt, who was often quoted in my childhood: „Es gibt Gerüchte, dass Hülsenfrüchte – in Mengen genommen – nicht gut bekommen. Das macht ja nichts, ich finde das fein, – warum soll man nicht auch mal ein Blähboy sein.“ Translated: “There are rumours, too, that pulses – in large quantities – are not good for you. That doesn't matter, I think it's fine – why shouldn't you be a flatulent boy sometime? “ (from: „Gerüchte um Gerichte“ [Rumours about dishes], in: Das große Heinz Erhardt Buch, Goldmann, München 1970). When legumes were served in my family, we always said, “Isst Du Erbsen, Bohnen, Linsen, fängt Dein Hintern an zu grinsen.“  Translated: “If you eat peas, beans and lentils, your bottom will start to smile.” In my husband's family, they say something similar: “Beans, beans, the magical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot.” I only learned the rest of this rhyme during my research on “Jack and the Beanstalk”: “The more you toot, the better you feel. So let's have beans for every meal!”

Finally, I found the following category on the Wikipedia page on flatulence humour (which first amused me and then also the guests at my afternoon tea): inculpatory pronouncements. One look at the list provided and I knew immediately what was meant, because in my school days the following widely used saying was the standard response to the angry inquiry into who it was that had farted: ‘Whoever smelled it first, dealt it!’

The Wikipedia page is wonderfully informative; among the rhyming gems, I also found “Them that smelt [for: smelled] it dealt it,” which I already knew from my Australian family. Other nice examples are:

“They who... /Whoever... Those who.../Whoever...

...detected it ejected it.”

...sang the song did the pong.”

...denied it supplied it.”

...sensed it dispensed it.”

I also liked:

“Whoever's poking fun is the smoking gun.”

And: “The smeller's the feller.”

And if you want to be quick-witted, you can reply: “They who said the rhyme did the crime.”

But I also liked the laconic “Self report!” I'll definitely incorporate something like that into my Morning Tea Event about Oscar Wilde's sparkling comedy “The Importance of Being Earnest”, because it deals with the topic of quick-wittedness.

Who would have thought that researching the humble bean could be so fruitful and fun! As the recently deceased Jim McKoll (Scottish gardening expert, author and long-standing, lovable and practical TV gardener on the BBC series Beechgrove) used to say: “Every day is a school day.”  This also applies, or perhaps especially, to teachers.

Stunt chicken at the test shoot

PS If you would like to read up on cognates without purchasing a specialist book, the English Wikipedia has a fairly comprehensive list ranging from Gothic to Hittite, unfortunately without any German examples (keyword: Indo-European vocabulary). Incidentally, the term Indo-European was introduced by the German linguist Franz Bopp in 1838, which is why it is surprising that the German Wikipedia lists its examples under the less common term Liste indogermanischer Wortgleichungen (list of Indo-European word equivalents) ... There, too, it's worth browsing on an enjoyable journey down the cognative rabbit hole!