Chickpea
The chickpea or chick pea is an annual legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae, cultivated for its edible seeds. Its different types are variously known as gram, Bengal gram, chana dal, garbanzo, garbanzo bean, or Egyptian pea. It is one of the earliest cultivated legumes, the oldest archaeological evidence of which was found in Syria.
Chickpeas are high in protein. The chickpea is a key ingredient in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisines, used in hummus, and, when soaked and coarsely ground with herbs and spices, then made into patties and fried, falafel. As an important part of Indian cuisine, it is used in salads, soups, stews, and curries. In 2023, India accounted for 75% of global chickpea production.
Etymology
Chickpeas have been cultivated for at least ten thousand years. Cultivation spread from the Fertile Crescent eastward toward South Asia and into Europe through the Balkans. Historical linguistics have found ancestral words relating to chickpeas in the prehistoric Proto-Indo-European language family that evolved into the Indo-European languages. The Proto-Indo-European roots kek- and k'ik'- that denoted both and appeared in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of Eastern Europe between 4,500 and 2,500 BCE. As speakers of the language became isolated from each other through the Indo-European migrations, the regional dialects diverged due to contact with other languages and dialects, and transformed into the known ancient Indo-European languages. The Old Prussian word kekêrs, appearing between 1 and 100 CE, retained the meaning of the word, but in most cases, the word came to be used to denote chickpeas. In Old Macedonian, the word κίκερροι appeared between 1000 and 400 BCE, and may have evolved from the Proto-Hellenic word *κικριός. In Ancient Rome, the Latin word cicer for chickpeas appeared around 700 BCE, and is probably derived from the word kickere used by the Pelasgians that inhabited north Greece before Greek-speaking tribes took over. The Old Armenian word siseŕn for chickpeas appeared before 400 CE. Over time, linkages between languages led to other descendant words, including the Albanian word qiqër, the Swedish word kikärt, the Slovak word cícer, the Estonian word kikerhernes, the Basque word txitxirio, and the Maltese word cicra.The Latin word cicer evolved into words for chickpeas in nearly all extinct and living Romance languages, including the Mozarabic word chíchar; the Catalan words ceirons, cigró, cigronera, cigrons and ciurons; the Walloon words poes d' souke; the Old French words ceire and cice; and the Modern French terms cicérole, cicer tete-de-belier, and pois chiche. These words were borrowed by many geographically neighboring languages, such as the French term pois chiche becoming chich-pease in Old English. The word pease, like the modern words for wheat and corn, was both singular and plural, but since it had an "s" sound at the end of it which became associated with the plural form of nouns, English speakers by the end of the 17th century were starting to refer to a single grain of pease as a pea.
Other important Proto-Indo-European roots relating to chickpeas are erəgw-, eregwo-, and erogwo-, which were used to denote both the kernel of a legume and a pea. This root evolved into the Greek word erebinthos, mentioned in The Iliad in around 800 BCE and in Historia Plantarum by Theophrastus, written between 350 and 287 BCE. The Portuguese words ervanço and gravanço; the Asturian word garbanzu; the Galician word garavanzo; the French words garvanche, garvance, and garvane; and the Spanish word garbanzo are all related to the Greek term. In American English, the term garbanzo to refer to the chickpea appeared in writing as early as 1759, and the seed is also referred to as a garbanzo bean.
Taxonomy
Chickpea is a member of the genus Cicer and the legume family, Fabaceae. Carl Linnaeus described it in the first edition of Species Plantarum in 1753, marking the first use of binomial nomenclature for the plant. Linnaeus classified the plant in the genus Cicer, which was the Latin term for chickpeas, crediting Joseph Pitton de Tournefort's 1694 publication Elemens de botanique, ou Methode pour connoitre les plantes which called it "Cicer arietinum". Tournefort himself repeated the names of the plant that had been used since antiquity.The specific epithet arietinum is based on the shape of the seed resembling the head of a ram. In Ancient Greece, Theophrastus described one of the varieties of chickpea called "rams" in Historia Plantarum. The Roman writer on agriculture Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella wrote about chickpeas in the second book of De re rustica, published in about 64 CE, and said that the chickpea was called arietillum. Pliny the Elder expanded further in Naturalis Historia that this name was due to the seed's resemblance to the head of a ram.
Cicer arietinum is the type species of the genus. The wild species C. reticulatum is interfertile with C. arietinum and is considered to be the progenitor of the cultivated species. Cicer echinospermum is also closely related and can be hybridized with both C. reticulatum and C. arietinum, but generally produce infertile seeds.
History
The chickpea was originally domesticated along with wheat, barley, peas, and lentils during the First Agricultural Revolution about 10,000 years ago. The closest evolutionary relative to chickpeas is Cicer reticulatum, a plant native to a relatively small area in the Southeastern part of modern-day Turkey and nearby areas in modern-day Syria. Initially, ancient hunter-gatherer cultures harvested wild plants that they encountered, but evidence of the cultivation of some domestic food crops from 7500 BCE and possibly earlier have been documented.Archaeological sites in modern Syria, such as Tell El-Kerkh and Tell Abu Hureyra, have revealed remnant traces of peas, lentils, and fava beans, along with grain legumes including chickpeas, bitter vetch, and grass peas from the 8th millennium BCE. Samples from Tell El-Kerkh have been analyzed, revealing traces of both the cultivated C. arietinum and the wild C. reticulatum. Additional discoveries have been made at Çayönü in Turkey dating from between 7500 and 6800 BCE, and at Hacilar in Turkey that date from 5450 BCE.
Cultivation of domesticated chickpea is well documented from 3300 BCE onwards in Egypt and the Middle East. During the Neolithic Era, chickpea cultivation spread to the west and was established in present-day Greece by the late Neolithic Era. During the Bronze Age, chickpea cultivation spread to Crete and as far as upper Egypt, with specimens from 1400 BCE found at Deir el-Medina. At the same time, it spread to the east, and chickpeas from 1900 BCE were found at Tell Bazmusian. In the Indian subcontinent, archaeological evidence of chickpea cultivation at Lal Quila, Sanghol, Inamgaon, Nevasa, Hulas, Senuwar, and Daimabad date from between 1750 and 1500 BCE. By the Iron Age, cultivation had spread as far south as Lalibela in Ethiopia. The Spanish and Portuguese introduced chickpea cultivation to the New World in the 16th century.
The process of domestication involved the selective breeding of plants that produced large, palatable seeds that do not require a dormancy period, plants that have seeds that are easy to separate from the pods, plants with a predictable ripening period to allow a whole field to ripen at once, and plants with desirable physical forms. This selective breeding produced several different varieties of chickpeas. In Greece, Theophrastus wrote "Chickpeas... differ in size, color, taste, and shape; there are the varieties called 'rams' and 'vetch-like' chickpeas, and the intermediate forms" in Historia Plantarum, written between 350 and 287 BCE.
One key selection factor in the domestication of chickpeas was the selection of a spring-sown cropping season. The evolutionary relatives of Cicer arietinum grow during the Winter and are harvested in the Spring. In the Near East, more than 80 percent of annual precipitation occurs between the months of December and February, while the long summers are hot and dry. Growing in the damp Winter months made the crops vulnerable to Ascochyta blight caused by Didymella rabiei, resulting in crop failures. Recorded evidence shows that by the Hellenistic period and the time of the Roman Empire, summer cropping of chickpeas was being practiced.
Genome sequencing
has been completed for 90 chickpea genotypes, including several wild species. A collaboration of 20 research organizations, led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics, sequenced CDC Frontier, a kabuli chickpea variety, and identified more than 28,000 genes and several million genetic markers.Description
The plant grows to 20–50 cm high and has small, feathery leaves on either side of the stem. It has white flowers with blue, violet, or pink veins. Chickpeas are a type of pulse, with one seedpod containing two or three peas.Varieties
Desi is the most common variety of chickpea in South Asia, Ethiopia, Mexico, and Iran, typically grown in semi-arid tropics, also called Bengal gram. It has small, dark seeds and a rough coat; coloring can be black, green, or speckled. In Hindi, it is called desi chana 'native chickpea', or kala chana 'black chickpea', and in Assamese and Bengali, it is called boot or chholaa boot. It can be hulled and split to make chana dal, Kurukshetra Prasadam, and bootor daali.Kabuli is the most common variety of chickpea in the Mediterranean and in the Middle East, typically grown in temperate regions. It is larger than Desi varieties and tan-colored, with a smooth coat. It was introduced to India in the 18th century from Afghanistan and is called kabuli chana in Hindi.
Ceci neri, an uncommon black chickpea is grown only in Apulia and Basilicata, in southern Italy. It is around the same size as garbanzo beans, slightly larger and darker than the 'desi' variety.