What is an ice cream bean?

Over the holidays, someone in the store asked me what an ice cream bean was – I had no idea but I did a little research and this is what I learned.

It is a legume in the same family as green beans, snap peas, and peanuts.  Inside there is a sweet, fluffy texture of  white pulp that has inspired comparisons to vanilla ice cream.

Ice cream beans grow on trees over 60 feet tall and the beans themselves can grow over a yard long. Its delicious eaten plain by splitting open the leathery pod and scooping out the pulp inside.  But don’t eat the large black seeds inside they will make you sick!