Popo got a handful dried fava beans from a street vendor who came from a village outside of the city. The dried beans were brownish and as hard as little rocks. She socked beans in an old bowl shaped like a five-petal plum blossom.
In a spring day, Popo sowed beans at far side of the garden and marked the boundary of this small bean field. Fava beans grew really fast. They were extending their stems and vines crowding and hugging each other.
Popo harvested a lot of fava beans and piled them up on the kitchen table. Fava bean pots were waxy green and big, as long as Dudu's whole hand. Didi asked Popo how she would cook such big bean pots. Popo said we need to shell them to get beans out. She twisted the shell and squeezed three beans out. Didi and Dudu followed her and soon they got a full bowl of green fava beans.
Didi picked up one and looked at the funny looking bean, on the smooth skin there was a thin curved pattern on the top, kind of like a smiling mouth.
Popo started to peel off the thin skin on the shelled beans, and she said fresh fava beans would taste a little bitter if cooked with the thin skin on. It was a lot of work and progressed pretty slowly. Didi tried a few beans and got impatient.
Popo told Didi and Dudu that if you only tear the bottom part of the bean skin and squeeze the bean out, the top half of the bean skin is a perfect finger tip cover, with the smiling mouth on it. Didi and Dudu liked the idea and they carefully made a bunch of green finger covers. On one side of the bean skin Didi used a pen to draw eyes and nose. They put them on and when they move fingers with the smiling faces, they suddenly had a really fun finger puppet show.
Finally the bean shelling was done. Popo saved a few beans with skin on. She cut a small red chili into bead like shape. Then she threaded fava beans together with the red chili bead, it became a colorful bean necklace!
On the dinner table that evening the family enjoyed a big bowl of green fava beans so tender so fresh. Didi wore the bean necklace, and Dudu kept her bean shell finger covers on.
