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My understanding is that most Ashkenazic communities today don't eat green beans on Passover, treating them as kitniyot (a bunch of legumes for which the custom arose to avoid on Passover). What's the earliest source/discussion on this?

msh210
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Shalom
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    When it comes to Pesach, you can find customs prohibiting almost anything, from potatoes to carrots to coffee. Are you looking specifically for an opinion that green beans are kitniyos? – הנער הזה Mar 18 '15 at 06:30

2 Answers2

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Sefer She'arim HaMetzuyanim BeHalacha (published appx 1950), commenting on the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch (Siman 117, Si'if Katan 7), mentions that green beans and, apparently, peas, may be considered Kitniyos as well.

http://hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=14619&st=&pgnum=113

I have since found online in the name of Rabbi Elazar M'Vermiza רבי אלעזר מוורמייזא that he said in a Pesach Drasha that we do not eat "Polin V'Adashim" since there is wheat mixed in with them.

בדרשה לפסח של רבי אלעזר מוורמייזא הוא מספר בקצרה "ומה שאין אוכלין פולין ועדשים, מפני שיש בהן חיטין"

Gershon Gold
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  • Hm, it seems like every source he's quoting is saying green beans should be okay, no? – Shalom Mar 24 '11 at 19:57
  • Read it again.. – Gershon Gold Mar 24 '11 at 20:26
  • Wikipedia: Green beans are the unripe fruit of any kind of bean ... varieties have been bred especially for ... their pods. Here's my reading of the source: "Yad Yitzchak prohibited legumes that are still green and in their pods, but the immature ones, i.e. pods in which the seeds haven't sprouted, were allowed ... they weren't included in the prohibition and it makes no sense for the prohibition to apply to them ... See Maharash who prohibited legumes-in-the-pod, but the pods alone weren't a question ... see similarly in Eshel Avraham ... – Shalom Mar 25 '11 at 13:01
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    I spoke over this question with Rav Ephraim Greenblatt. He was clueless as to why anyone would say that green-beans are kitniyos. He seemed unaware that people did not eat them on Pesach. I spoke to Dayan Fuerst (of Chicago) about it one Purim and (I do not believe he was being serious) he said "It's because they are called beans! Another point: Shearim Metzuyanim BeHalacha and other recent "Likut Seforim" and responsa call it "Gezeiras Kitniyos". There never was a gezeirah. Rav Moshe Feinstein explains that the Rabbanim were manhig (led, guided) their followers to not eat it. It is a minhag. – Yahu Mar 25 '11 at 13:41
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    Why do you translate פולין as green-beans and עדשים as peas??? – Double AA Mar 20 '15 at 05:04
  • @DoubleAA: Perhaps there are those who translate it as such and thus the Chumra. – Gershon Gold Mar 20 '15 at 12:59
  • @GershonGold Do you have any reason to think anyone did so? We can say perhaps אורז is green beans too. – Double AA Mar 20 '15 at 20:07
  • @DoubleAA: The She'arim HaMetzuyanim BeHalacha that my answer links to seems to call them that. – Gershon Gold Mar 22 '15 at 02:19
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Greenbeans are technically the fruit of P. vulgaris, a plant whose cultivars produce kidney beans, navy beans, and pinto beans, which are considered kitniyot in common Ashkenazi practice.

Double AA
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Noach MiFrankfurt
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  • I don't understand how this answers the question. Leaves aren't Kitniyot. How do you know pods, which can't be ground into flour and don't resemble wheat in any way, are Kitniyot? – Double AA Jun 06 '16 at 15:29
  • @DoubleAA, the pods contain beans, which may be dried and ground into flour. – Noach MiFrankfurt Jun 06 '16 at 16:30
  • Is that true? How do you know that? And did anyone do that? Does anyone do that? Just because there is a mini-bean-fetus in there doesn't make it a fruit. Seemingly you couldn't separate Maaser yet, for instance. It's not Pol HaLavan / Shlish Giddul, I'd think. – Double AA Jun 06 '16 at 16:39
  • @DoubleAA, I can't prove it, because I can't scan a greenbean (3d) into my computer. However, this is my experience in eating greenbeans for most of my life. Furthermore, when have Pesach chumrot been logical or specifically halachic in nature? – Noach MiFrankfurt Jun 06 '16 at 16:43
  • I don't understand your comment. Your eating green beans doesn't show they can be ground into flour (or that anyone has done so), and if your argument is merely "nothing makes sense" then it doesn't answer the question. – Double AA Jun 06 '16 at 16:45
  • @DoubleAA, I can pop the beans from haricots verts into my oven and dehydrate them, then grind them with a food processor until they become a powder. I'm not going to do that, as it would be a waste of food, but it encapsulates the kitniyot argument in a nutshell. – Noach MiFrankfurt Jun 06 '16 at 16:50
  • You could make a powder out of apples too if you dehydrate them and grind them. That's not what making flour means and that's not what makes something Kitniyot. – Double AA Jun 06 '16 at 16:54