Poppies and fava beans

I haven't seen my sister for 18 months, because of lockdown, so it was good to drive down for the day recently to catch up with her. She lives just south of Lincoln and I always enjoy a walk round there. It's so different from here, being an agricultural area with vast fields of cereal crops. I was hoping to see some cornfield poppies and there were a few, albeit looking a little parched as there's been so little rain. 

We also came across a field of fava beans (below), not something I'm familiar with. Apparently they were a staple part of the British diet until the 18th century, a key source of protein in 'pottage', a simple bean stew. As meat and dairy products became more affordable, the beans eventually went out of fashion, stigmatised as a food for poor people. They are still grown in crop rotation for fixing nitrogen in the soil. They are left to dry on the plant and most of the UK harvest is exported to the Middle East or sold as animal feed. They have recently been 'rediscovered' as a nutritious source of food for humans and are being marketed as a wholefood. (See HERE). It's interesting how fashions come and go, in foodstuffs as well as other things.