Chickpea, Cicer arietinum

Chickpeas belong to the legume family and are the seeds of the chickpea bush. The plant has been known for almost 10,000 years and originally comes from what is now Turkey, according to some sources also from the Himalayan region. Although the chickpea is round like a pea and about the same size, it is not botanically related to it. However, as pulses, both are similarly rich in protein and therefore a good source of protein for anyone who eats little or no meat.

All about the chickpea plant

The chickpea is an annual, herbaceous plant that grows branched and ground-lying to upright and can grow up to one meter high. Stems and pods are hairy. Thanks to its deep taproots, it gets by with little water. Flowering occurs after 40 to 50 days, after which the plant forms round, greenish pods, each containing one or two fruits. The chickpea thrives best in light, quick-warming soil without waterlogging and at a temperature of around 25°C.

As a member of the legume family, chickpeas are known to form a symbiotic relationship with nodule bacteria on their roots and are therefore particularly good at fixing nitrogen from the air. The cultivation of chickpeas can be easily integrated into organic crop rotation, taking into account cultivation breaks of five to six years. They are usually harvested by mowing off the wilted plant after the pods have dried. In large cultivation areas, chickpeas are now often sown mechanically and harvested with combine harvesters. However, there are also many smaller producers who sow and harvest by hand.

Cultural history and distribution

Chickpeas are one of the oldest crops in the world. They have always been a staple food in India and West Asia in particular, as they are versatile, nutritious and can be stored very well when dried. Chickpeas are also an important staple food in Mexico.

There are speculations that the chickpea was cultivated in the Himalayan region as long as 10,000 years ago. However, the probable original form is traced back to a variety still growing in Turkey today. It is assumed that the chickpea spread from Asia Minor towards Iran and Iraq and from there began its triumphal march to India, Pakistan and North Africa. From around 3000 BCE, the chickpea then spread to Italy and Greece, where the plant also thrived thanks to the warm climate. In Central Europe, chickpeas have been known primarily as a useful and medicinal plant since the Middle Ages, although they were never produced here on a large scale due to the cold climate.

Nowadays, chickpeas are mainly grown in the warmer, often subtropical regions of India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, North Africa, Mexico and the USA. In 2023, just over 16 tonnes of chickpeas were harvested worldwide – weighed in dry matter. India was the main producer, accounting for 74.3% of the global harvest, followed by Australia and Turkey.

Healthy variety in world cuisine

With up to 25% protein in the form of the essential amino acids lysine and threonine, chickpeas are an ideal source of vegetable protein. It is mainly grown for human consumption and, unlike soy, does not play a significant role as a source of protein in industrial livestock farming.

Chickpeas are rich in B vitamins, which play a crucial role in many energy metabolism processes in the body. They also contain vitamin E, vitamin C and folic acid. They also contain the trace elements iron and zinc as well as the minerals magnesium, sodium, potassium, calcium and phosphate.

Chickpeas are soaked in water and cooked before the actual preparation. They can also be preserved or dried and ground into flour or semolina. The nutty-tasting pulses can be prepared in a variety of ways, as can be seen in traditional cuisines around the world:

• Hummus, the well-known dip made from pureed chickpeas, is very popular in the Arab world and around the world
• Falafel, the deep-fried chickpea balls, are an integral part of Middle Eastern and North African cuisine.
• Chana masala is considered one of India’s national dishes.
• In southern Europe, chickpea flour is traditionally used to make flatbread or thin pancakes.
• In North Africa, roasted chickpeas are eaten as a snack.
• Garbanzos are a national dish in Spain and are harvested green and eaten raw.
• Chickpea flour is used by many culinary cultures as a base for making bread, pizza, pancakes, gluten-free pasta or sweet baked goods. In Italy and France, it is used to make socca or farinata, in India it is used to fry pakoras or to make laddus, a chickpea confectionery, and in Turkey it is used in desserts such as leblebi.
  

Food of the future

The fact that protein-rich pulses such as chickpeas also represent a nutritional alternative to meat consumption is no longer controversial. The consequences of a reduction in livestock farming would have multiple positive effects on nature and the environment: more arable land would be available to feed people, the deforestation of (rain)forests could be stopped, the very high water consumption for meat production would be significantly reduced – soil cultivation would also become more sustainable, as a higher proportion of pulses in a country’s agricultural system would improve the overall efficiency of nitrogen use…

A study by the University of Vienna in 2024 also looked at the sustainability of chickpeas in relation to drought stress in the context of climate change. An international research team cultivated the natural variations of chickpea genotypes in a field experiment in a Vienna city region and showed that the different varieties and wild types have very different mechanisms to deal with periods of drought. This natural genetic diversity is important to ensure the survival of the plant so that it can adapt to climate change. However, this also requires a transformation in agriculture. So far, the opposite has been the case: the global food system has become increasingly uniform and the use of the genetic diversity of plants continues to decline. While there are around 7,000 edible crops worldwide, only a good 150 species are of major importance for nutrition and only nine species still account for around two thirds of global food production.

Even if chickpeas are not currently one of the plants on which the global diet is mainly based, pulses such as chickpeas with their high protein content and drought resistance are a food of the future.

Sources

Informationsdienst Wissenschaften: Chickpeas – sustainable and climate-friendly food of the future. Link.
Food of the future: The chickpea. Link.