Nutritional characteristics of black lentil from Soleto: a single-flower vetch landrace of Apulia region (southern Italy).

Archaeological remains and historical documents demonstrate that single-flower vetch has been cultivated in Italy from the early stages of agriculture. Some Italian communities have perpetu-ated the custom to eat its seeds still to the present. This is the case of people living in some vil-lage of southern Apulia region. In consequence of the high resemblance of single-flower vetch (Vicia articulata Hornem.) seeds with those of lentil, the Apulian landrace is locally named "len-ticchia nera di Soleto" (black lentil from Soleto). The evaluation of seed nutritional traits of this landrace revealed good macronutrient contents (proteins and starch, 28.4 and 42.4 g/100g respec-tively), low trypsin inhibitor level (4.08 TIU/mg), short cooking time after soaking (24-25 min) and lack of broken seeds at the end of cooking. The coat content of total phenolic compounds (TPC) of Apulian black lentil resulted comparable with that of lentil cv. Beluga (68.23 vs 66.14 mg GAE/g, respectively).