Edamame

It is soybean season again.  I cannot be happier. 

Soybeans in their pods, steamed and lightly salted.  Edamame is a popular appetizer/ snack food that the whole world loves.  It is simple, tasty, healthy and fun to eat.  Kids and adults alike enjoy slurping the soft, creamy beans from their shells.

There is a famous Shanghaiese dish that employs shelled soybeans.  It has always been my favorite.  When I was a kid, my mom would also steam these green soybeans in pods for me as snacks.  Chinese people call the beans Mao Dou (毛豆) -- Hairy Beans.  The name seems straight forward and obvious because of the fuzzy hairy bean pods.  

When I got older, I found these same beans on the menu of a Japanese restaurant.   There, they have a different name: Edamame -- Branch Beans (枝豆).  I was a little perplexed.  

Branch beans?  Why?  What do the beans have to do with branches?

Fast forward many years.  I came to live in the US.  I now have a veggie garden.  I decided to grow some soybeans so we don't have to buy the frozen stuff.  The unnaturally glowing green color makes me wonder if the beans have been artificially colored.

Soybeans are not hard to grow.  In spring, you stick the seeds into the ground.  Within a week or so, you will see sprouts coming up.  If you give them a sunny spot, they grow to be about three feet tall or even more and can be quite productive.

In early summer, dainty purple flowers start appearing.  Not until I started growing soybeans do I know that the lovely little flowers are located at the nodes of the main stem -- the same places where branches grow out from the stem.  As a result, when the bean pods are formed, they hang from the nodes of the stem, right around the base of the branches.  So the name Branch Beans!

Before I saw a soybean pod, the soybean is just a smooth bean.  After I met the bean pod, the name "hairy bean" becomes the obvious.  But then, watching the plant grow offers me the opportunity to see a subtle reality that is easy to miss.

One single plant, three different realities.  Which one is the truth?   They are all true.  It is just a matter of one's perspective, perception and understanding.  

While it may be interesting to know that the beans have a hairy pod and that they grow from the base rather than at the tip of a branch, for someone who is easily satisfied with the obvious, the soybean is forever going to be just a banal smooth little bean.  There is almost no way to change their view.