The first time I ever tasted a fava bean was after landing in Rome on my very first trip to Italy, back in May of 1991, and driving to Todi (in Umbria), where I was spending the whole glorious summer. Our host’s father, an American ex-pat who lived down the hill outside the medieval town walls, had stopped by to show us the ins and outs of the apartment — and he happened to also be carrying fava beans and a hunk of local pecorino cheese.

Having grown up in the American South in a rather conservative culinary environment, I had never even seen fava beans before, much less tasted them. I thought Bill was bringing them for us to cook later, but no: The morass of gangly, vinous, slightly fuzzy fave (fah-vay), as it is pronounced in Italian, were meant to be eaten raw, with pecorino.