Maltese Ful

Maltese Ful is a Maltese landrace fava collected in Malta by Experimental Farm Network co-founder Nate Kleinman and imported to the United States under a USDA Small Lots of Seed permit, so it comes with an unusually clear provenance for a landrace. Ful is a staple of Maltese cooking, and EFN is careful to distinguish this one from the smaller local type known as ful ta' Girba, named for the Tunisian island of Djerba, which is what most bigilla dip is actually made from; Maltese Ful is the larger, general-purpose bean. On Malta itself favas are grown almost exclusively as a winter crop because the summers are too hot, which shapes how the variety behaves elsewhere. Maltese cooks use it in torta tal-irkotta, the ricotta-and-egg pie, as well as in soups, stews and risottos, and EFN notes the flowers, leaves, shoots and young pods are all edible too. The seed lot offered was grown out by Jason Andrzejewski in Columbus, Michigan, and tested at 95 percent germination in November 2023.