Frisoles and pallares — the two American beans, named in 1590, resolved by genome in 2014

Acosta's Seville imprint of 1590 names two pulses the Indians grew for themselves, frisoles and pallares, and states that the European chickpea, broad bean and lentil were not there before the Spaniards. Molina's 1571 dictionary prints a whole bean economy in one column of Nahuatl: the field, the sowing verb, the harvester's name, the boiled bean, the stew, the dough. Modern genomics finds two independent domestications — and measures what breeding since has cost.