Broad beans, favism and racism

From miasma to miracles: how medieval medicine desperately battled the bubonic plague

Whether vestiges of paganism survived Europe’s Christianisation is a subject of enduring fascination. Scholarly debate navigates between the ‘maximalist’ position (much survived) and the ‘minimalist’

Donald Trump describes the enemy as “global financial powers”. For Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, they’re “international speculators” with hidden faces. For Matthew Goodwin, national populism’s chief British

In short, yes: the Victorians did indeed think eating mummified remains pilfered from ancient Egyptian tombs was a good idea, although they did not come up with the idea themselves. The morbid practic

Homegrown broad beans are delicious and tender, and appear as one of the first crops of the year. They’re easy to grow from seed, yielding green pods of green or white beans that can be used in salads

Galls, which can range from the delicately beautiful to hideously unattractive bulbous growths, are among Nature’s most intriguing phenomena, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee