You can eat the whole thing, pod and all, up to the length of your little finger. Thereafter eat them when you can feel the beans in the pods. When they are the size of your finger nail eat the beans unpeeled. As they get bigger and older the skins get tougher and they are better peeled. But I am far too lazy to do that. We just eat them younger. We're having some tonight.

Thanks flora! I guess I'll pop open a pod and see what's what in there. I guess they must get fairly large, given the size of the seed I planted! How do you prefer to prepare them?

Swift boil ie about 3 minutes, then eat luke warm in vinaigrette, toss with fried chopped bacon and add to pasta, just add butter and chopped herbs and serve as a side dish, add to risottos ... a hundred ways. Anything you might do with a pea you can do with a fava. the old ones you can make hummus from. I don't use recipes much. I just cook whatever is on hand any way that seems appropriate.

fava beans can get up to 18" long. Mine never do, but some varieties can.

favas can be eaten at all stages, I have eaten the greens, including any flowers, the immature seeds, the mature seeds, and the dried seed.