haricots verts

Haricots verts in a French market.

AHR´-ee-coh VEHR´

Haricots verts is French for ‘green beans’ in general, although the term is usually only applied to green beans that conform to French tastes: young, narrow, and with tiny seeds.

As with their petits pois, the French refuse to eat the old, fat, tough green beans (with seeds the size of golf balls) that we often put up with in America.

The best edible item at the wedding was not the cake, an amazing chocolate torte, but the haricots verts, perfectly steamed, buttered, and salted.