Bean (Books)

Beans are a vegetable mentioned minimally in the How to Train Your Dragon Book series.

Description
Beans are plants belonging to the Genus Phaseolus, though sometimes the Family Fabaceae are also referred to as beans - the Family in which Phaseolus belongs. Phaseolus includes the plants and their seeds that are most commonly known such as the Runner Bean (Phaseolus coccineus ), the Lima Bean (Phaseolus lunatus), and the most diverse - the Common Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris). The common bean includes cultivars such as pinto beans, 'green beans', 'string beans', black beans, kidney beans, and many others.

Bean plants are highly variable. They can have a growth habit similar to bushes, or have a vine growth, trailing up poles or other objects, or running along the ground. They grow in tropical to temperate climates. Bean seeds grow in elongated pods which can be eaten green or allowed to mature and dry to produce a variety of colorful seeds, depending of species and cultivar.

All Phaseolus species originated in the Americas, and were not introduced to the rest of the world until at least Columbus' voyage. Historical Vikings would not have had beans available to them.

Function
In the Book series, beans are mainly used as a descriptor, particularly for its long and skinny pod shape.

In reality, beans are a major food source through history, especially for indigenous peoples of the Americas. Historically, beans were one of the 'three sisters', three crops that native people grew together and was very important to their diet. The Three Sisters composed of corn, beans which used the corn as a pole, and squash which spread along the ground and blocked weeds.

How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse
Fishlegs is referred to as "a skinny runner-bean of a boy", a reference to his small, skinny, lanky shape.