Invasion of the hummus
It is small, round, pale, hard and bitter. It is also as old as the pyramids of Egypt, and as celebrated as the military skills of Alexander the Great. I speak, with reverence and a little fear, about what the Spanish call Garbanzo. The bean that is conquering the world - better known, perhaps, as the chick pea.
7000 years ago someone somewhere in the Middle East popped a chick pea in the pot and boiled it till it burst. Then they mashed, garnished and gobbled it up. The rest is not so much history, but hummus. Hummus is an Arabic word for what has become a thoroughly invasive and international vegetable. They call it Ceci in Italy and Gram in India. But the ancient Phoenicians were probably responsible for exporting the stuff to Western Europe. Thereafter a relentless global hummus epidemic began to spread.
It is still an essential part of the daily diet in Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan - which probably doesn't do its reputation as a peaceful pea any good at all. Hummus rivalry between Jew and Arab led to the Israelis producing a record beating batch weighing in at over a ton. In 2009 the Lebanese retaliated with a two ton hummus. Israel upped the record to four tons a year later. And so it goes on. They also eat disgusting quantities of the stuff in Greece - a nation now so heavily in debt that it could spark a worldwide banking crisis.
That humble chick pea has an awful lot to answer for. I am told that the American appetite for hummus used to be modest. Sixteen years ago your annual intake was barely worth $5 million. But now you eat your way through $325 million worth of these pernicious little pulses every year - some of them even flavoured with chocolate and peanut butter.
God Bless You, America. I regret to inform you that there is no escape on our side of the pond, as we have failed to banish the wretched little things from these shores. 12,000 tonnes now end up in English stomachs each year. Resistance is futile. May the peas be with you. This is Ed Boyle for CBS News in London.