Foul b'Zayt (فول بالزيت) is the plainest and most fundamental reading of Lebanese fava beans: ful medames dressed simply with olive oil, the bean and the oil doing nearly all the work, eaten by scooping with bread or packed into it. Foul is the standard Levantine breakfast of small dark fava beans simmered soft and crushed with lemon and garlic; the b'zayt version strips back the additions and lets a generous pour of good olive oil be the whole finishing gesture. The angle is the oil. With nothing else hidden in it, the quality and quantity of the olive oil decides the dish: a grassy, peppery oil in real volume turns simple mashed beans into something rounded and fragrant, while a thin or stale oil leaves the same beans tasting flat and dry.
The build could not be shorter, which is exactly why the margins are thin. Small fava beans, soaked and simmered until completely soft, are tipped warm into a bowl with their own cooking liquid and crushed, partly or fully, against the side of the dish. Crushed garlic, lemon juice, and salt go in while the beans are hot so they take the seasoning, and then the defining step: a heavy, deliberate pour of extra-virgin olive oil worked through and pooled on top, enough that the surface glistens and the beans loosen to a scoopable rather than stiff texture. The standard finishes are a dusting of cumin, chopped parsley, and often diced tomato and onion or a few green chilies and olives on the side, with torn khubz for scooping or a pita for a packed hand-held version. Good execution shows beans that are soft and properly salted, a real volume of fragrant oil that the beans have absorbed and that still slicks the surface, and a clean balance of fava, garlic, and lemon under it. Sloppy execution is chalky undercooked beans, a mean trickle of tired oil that leaves the mash dry and dull, or a heavy hand on the lemon that turns the whole bowl sour rather than rounded.
It varies almost entirely by how far the beans are crushed and by the oil and acid balance, since there is little else to move. A coarsely crushed bowl keeps whole beans for texture and reads rustic; a fully mashed one is smooth and dip-like. More lemon and garlic sharpens it; a bigger oil pour and a lighter hand on the lemon makes it mellow and rich. This olive-oil form is the base case the other versions build on, but it stands as its own named dish, distinct from the yogurt, egg, and hummus builds, each of which deserves its own treatment rather than being folded in here. What foul b'zayt reliably delivers is the fava bean at its most direct: soft, garlicky, lemoned, and carried by a generous slick of good olive oil, eaten warm with bread.