The chickpea or chick pea (Cicer arietinum) is an annual legume of the family Fabaceae, subfamily Faboideae,[2][3] cultivated for its edible seeds.

The chickpea is a key ingredient in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisines, used in hummus, and, when soaked and coarsely ground with herbs and spices then made into patties and fried, falafel.

As an important part of Indian cuisine, it is used in salads, soups and stews, and curry, in chana masala, and in other food products that contain channa (chickpeas).

[26][22]: 231  Initially, ancient hunter-gatherer cultures harvested wild plants that they encountered, but evidence of the cultivation of some domestic food crops from 7500 BCE and possibly earlier have been documented.

[27]: 2  During the Bronze Age, chickpea cultivation spread to Crete and as far as upper Egypt, with specimens from 1400 BCE found at Deir el-Medina.

In the Indian subcontinent, archaeological evidence of chickpea cultivation at Lal Quila, Sanghol, Inamgaon, Nevasa, Hulas, Senuwar, and Daimabad date from between 1750 and 1500 BCE.

[25] In the Near East, more than 80 percent of annual precipitation occurs between the months of December and February, while the long summers are hot and dry.

[25] Recorded evidence shows that by the Hellenistic period and the time of the Roman Empire, summer cropping of chickpeas was being practiced.

The most common variety of chickpea in South Asia, Ethiopia, Mexico, and Iran is the desi type, also called Bengal gram.

[36] They are one of the most popular vegetarian foods in the Indian subcontinent[37] and in diaspora communities of many other countries, served with a variety of bread or steamed rice.

In South Asian cuisine, chickpea flour (besan) is used as a batter to coat vegetables before deep frying to make pakoras.

It is made of cooked chickpea flour, poured into saucers, allowed to set, cut into strips, and fried in olive oil, often eaten during Lent.

Ashkenazi Jews traditionally serve whole chickpeas, referred to as arbes (אַרבעס) in Yiddish, at the Shalom Zachar celebration for baby boys.

A chickpea-derived liquid (aquafaba) can be used as an egg white replacement to make meringue[41] or ice cream, with the residual pomace used as flour.

Only young broilers (starting period) showed worse performance in poultry diet experiments with untreated chickpeas.

[31] Secondary components of legumes—such as lecithin, polyphenols, oligosaccharides; and amylase, protease, trypsin and chymotrypsin inhibitors—can lead to lower nutrient availability, and thus to impaired growth and health of animals (especially in nonruminants).

Overprocessing may decrease the nutritional value; extrusion leads to losses in minerals and vitamins, while dry heating does not change the chemical composition.

[45] Ancient people also associated chickpeas with Venus because they were said to offer medical uses such as increasing semen and milk production, inducing menstruation and urination, and helping to treat kidney stones.

[51][52] Soaking and cooking of dry seeds possibly induces chemical modification of protein-fibre complexes, which leads to an increase in crude fibre content.

Germination decreases lysine, tryptophan, sulphur and total aromatic amino acids, but most contents are still higher than proposed by the FAO/WHO reference pattern.

[51] Chickpeas contain oligosaccharides (raffinose, stachyose, and verbascose) which are indigestible to humans but are fermented in the gut by bacteria, leading to flatulence in susceptible individuals.

[56] The uptake of macronutrients such as inorganic phosphorus or nitrogen is vital to the plant development of Cicer arietinum, commonly known as the perennial chickpea.

Recent research has indicated that a combination of heat treatment along with the two vital macronutrients, phosphorus and nitrogen, are the most critical components to increasing the overall yield of Cicer arietinum.

Increasing the height and size of chickpea plants involves using macronutrient fertilization with varying doses of inorganic phosphorus and nitrogen.

[58] The level of phosphorus that a chickpea seed is exposed to during its lifecycle has a positive correlation relative to the height of the plant at full maturity.

Thus, the seasonal changes in phosphorus soil content, as well as periods of drought that are known to be a native characteristic of the dry Middle-Eastern region where the chickpea is most commonly cultivated, have a strong effect on the growth of the plant itself.

[58] Nitrogen nutrition is another factor that affects the yield of Cicer arietinum, although the application differs from other perennial crops regarding the levels administered on the plant.

The perennial chickpea's growth depends on the balance between nitrogen fixation and assimilation, which is also characteristic of many other agricultural plant types.

These pathogens originate from groups of bacteria, fungi, viruses, mycoplasma and nematodes and show a high genotypic variation.

[64] Ascochyta disease emergence is favoured by wet weather; spores are carried to new plants by wind and water splash.