Bean, Potato and Fennel Soup Recipe by Rachel Roddy

About 14 miles west of Leicester is a hamlet called Barton in the Beans. I only visited it through Google Street View but it is mentioned in the Doomsday Book as Bartone, which meant a pen or barley farm owned by the lord of a manor. It is noted as having a population of three households in 1086, which puts it in the smallest 20% of recorded settlements (although, rest assured, the lord of the manor, Hugues de Grandmesnil, and his family had many other lands). Bartone became Barton in Fabis, fabis being the Latin for beans, in this case vicia faba – broad beans, fava beans or broad beans – then later Barton in the Beans: production perpetuated in a name. Importantly, however, the cultivation of beans in the region – and the consumption of fava beans and fava beans by humans and animals – predates the name, dating back to the Iron Age and perhaps even the Bronze Age.

170 miles south, in Somerset, a variety of fava beans took the name of the village from which they originated; Martock beans became a staple not only for bean fasting and feasting, but were a fundamental part of the medieval survival diet. They were eaten fresh and dried, that is, simmered for soups and stews, baked, or ground into flour. According to Marwood Yeatman, in his book The Last Food of England, the Martock bean was mentioned in the lordly rolls of 1273, and also in a saying that goes, "If you shake a Martock man, he rattles."

A dried bean rattle is a good rattle. Especially when it's the split ones, which look like bone buttons or unfortunate teeth, and, when held between two cupped hands, are almost as good as a shaker. They mellow out to be creamy and mealy, with a flavor that falls somewhere between a pea, cannellini bean, chickpea, and chestnut; I would love dried split beans even if they require a long soak. The fact that they only need a brief one, which can be ignored, makes them even more adorable and useful.

They are also mischievous beans that fool you twice. First when they tell you they won't go soggy then you chase one around the pot and taste and worry and the next thing you know they're a soggy soup and which is collapsing. The second time is when, while you are setting the table, they turn the soup into hummus. That's why you need to watch the amount of liquid when making this week's Bean, Potato, and Fennel Soup recipe. If you don't like fennel, you can replace it with leek and parsley for hints of green.

Going back to the sayings, there is one similar from the East Midlands and Barton in Beans, which John Benjamin Firth recorded in 1926 in the book Highways and Byways of Leicestershire: "Shake a Leicestershire man by the collar and you may hear the beans crackling in his belly." There's no rattle with the soup of course - it's too soothing for that.

Dried broad bean, potato and fennel soup

soak 1 hour ( optional)Preparation 5 minCooking 50 minFor 4 people

200 g dried broad beans (shelled and split)4 tbsp olive oil1 onion, peeled and diced1 apple medium ground, peeled and diced 1 small fennel bulb, trimmed and diced, with all curly leaves set aside Salt and black pepper

If you have time, soak the dried beans in water for an hour, then drain them. If you don't have time, they will just take longer to cook.

In a sauté pan, soften the onion in the olive oil with a pinch of salt, then add the beans, potato and fennel and cook, stirring, for a few minutes.

Add 1.3 liters of water and bring to a boil , then reduce to low heat and cook, half covered, for 40 minutes, or until the beans are tender and crumbled. The soup should remain slightly bubbling, add a little water if necessary.

In the last moments of cooking, taste and add salt and pepper if necessary, as well as the fennel leaves. Serve with a drizzle of olive oil.