- This topic has 25,771 voices and 108 replies.
-
Posts
-
but you do have to string them. But that’s what front porches and rocking chairs are for.
Oh yeah, Barbara. That is part of the memory that made them taste so good. Going out in the garden with my gran gran to pick beans, sitting on the back porch with her and Grandma, stringing and snapping. Oh, I thought it was some kind of torture back then, but now I am so very thankful that they were so mean to me. :~)
No bacon here, either. No pork, no cigarettes. What we doing in Carolina?
Ya know it’s been so long since I have made the third kind of cornbread you referred to….I had forgotten about it. A real sweet old lady who was raising her kids on her own many decades ago taught me how to make that kind….just taking cornmeal and adding water to it to make a nice batter and then fry it golden in the skillet. She couldn’t afford the eggs and milk….what good memories you brought back…thanks.
The beans are two distinct types…half runners are a flat pole bean, meaning they needed support like strings or poles. Pole beans need the stringing the most…and some times have to be shelled (hence, shelly beans).
We always referred to the bush beans as snap beans since most of the time they don’t end up needing stringing unless they are too mature. That’s what kind my mom still plants now. But, like you I can remember many times sitting and stringing beans on the porch in my youth….and shucking corn, too. Ummm….this summer we can “torture” you again….might have a Shucking and Stringing Party….LOL.
Mom used to string and shell beans too, you can do that with pretty much any bean really. We were pretty poor back when I was a kid, and I remember the whole lot of us spending the summer picking and stringing bushels upon bushels of beans. It was a daily job, that took all day to do, from sunup to sundown. I strung so many beans that my hands were raw and it was no party let me tell you.
The worst part was that we ate beans for a whole year with every meal. I got so sick of beans that I wouldn’t eat them, nor even look at them, for years. The kids are into macaroni & cheese w/green beans now (kids are found to like bland food) and I am nearly to the point of not caring for beans again, so we backed that out of the menu a bit. Being poor, mac&cheese was often the staple in our house, 1 box split 4, and later 5 ways. But it wasn’t as often we ate it, as compared to green beans.
The only thing we do with cornbread, besides lining the bottom of the pan w/bacon, is we will add some white flour (1/2 cup) for consistancy, otherwise straight cornmeal winds up with the bread falling apart into crumbs before you can eat it.
I’ve shucked my fair share of corn too, which I enjoy/enjoyed more than stringing beans.
Greens were a staple as well for quite awhile in our family. My grandmother used to take her knife and go up into the hills and cut dandelion greens, polk, and a slew of other greens, bring them home and wash them, put bacon grease in the skillet and fry them up for a meal. Problem is that none of us can remember exactly what all the greens were that she would hunt and fry up. It may have been a “hit and miss” recipe for her anyway, depending on what she was able to find.
When I was a kid, we had to cut corn off the cob, so Mom could freeze it. I hated doing it before when she cooked it and then froze it, because it was so messy. Then someone gave her a recipe for freezing it in a way that tasted just like corn on the cob. However, you had to cut it off raw. Gosh, what a mess! I would take a garbage bag, cut head holes and arm holes and wear it when I did the cutting.
But, as someone who rarely eats corn, I even liked the taste.
Also, if I ever find the Lakota recipe book I bought, I will post this blueberry desert they gave us in Pine Ridge. Delicious! On this trip, we were fed more Indian food. I ate my first frybread. Ordinarily, I eat South Beach diet but there is no way to stick to it out there.
Techteach
Okay! This is old man Black Bear. Yellow womans man and you all are making me hungry. {I just had lunch.} I have no adversion to bacon. Isn’t it at the top of the food pyramid? Guess I’ll go check the fridge.
Okay here is my contribution from Betty Warm Spirit’s Cookbook
FRIED SQUASH BLOSSUMS
1/2 CUP ALL-PURPOSE FLOUR
1/2 TSP. BAKING POWDER
1/4 TSP. GARLIC SALT
1/4 TSP. GROUND CUMIN
1 EGG
1/2 CUP MILK
1 Tbsp VEGETABLE OIL
ADDITIONAL OIL FOR FRYING
12 LG FRESH PICKED SQUASH BLOSSUMS
In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, garlic salt, and cumin. In another bowl, beat egg, milk and oil. Add to dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Ina skillet, heat 2 inches of oil to 375 degress. dip blossums into batter and fry in oil, a few at a time until crisp. Drain on paper towels. Keep warm until serving.
This recipe yeilds 4 servings.
Ladies, Ya’ll are talking about what is commonly called “Pole Beans” or “Cornfield Snaps.” I grew up with the Kentucky Wander variety planted in the corn and climbing the corn stalks. There is a native variety supposed to be connected with the Trail of Tears but I don’t recall the name but will look it up tonight. I am awaiting some warm weather and dryer weather to plant some corn. I am holding two heirloom varieties of pole beans that I think may be like ones our neighbors from Person County used to grow. The seeds had been saved for generations. One was called “Cutshorts” which were short beans that might be snapped in half as they were not long enough for extra snapping. You would pull a string with each end broken and with the snap in half. They are green with purple stripes and variations but turn emerald green when they hit the pot of hot water and seasoning. You can smell them all over the house cooking. The other is called “Creaseback” and I think it might be called “Rattlesnake” also. It is longer but similar coloring and also has to be strung with every snap or break. Again the bean flavor and aroma with cooking is out of this world. The Kentucky Wander Pole bean will need stringing some when it reaches a certain maturity but younger beans snap clean. You will also find beans more filled out as you pick them and you simply shell those beans in with the snap’s cooking them together. These delicacies of the past really need a small ham hock, or a piece of side meat home cured to add the finishing touch. Ed
Hey Guys, some post went in before mine so didn’t mean to leave you out!
I just checked with Baker’s Heirloom Seeds and they are calling the native variety Cherokee Trail of Tears bean. The Cutshort’s are supposed to have come over on the Mayflower believe it or not? They became popular and were very prolific and spread southward among both European’s and Native Americans. According to the history on them they enjoyed tremendous acceptance for years, even up into the 1900’s in Virginia and North Carolina. My introduction to them came through the Bowlin family out of Person Co. North Carolina who had numerous vegetable seeds that had been passed down for ages. They always saved them when dry in a glass canning jar, shelled out and with a moth ball in the jar of seed.
You do know when we got lazy and counted it “too strenuous ” to sit and string snaps we let the more “enlightened” of our species to develop “stringless” stringbeans. Did we not know that breeding the strings out would also reduce the wonderful bean flavor we all not vaguely remember and long to taste again? Every “improvement” carries it’s cost and I am just an old dumb bunny who finds it realaxing to sit and string home grown beans and I like shelling them too. Ed
Techteach…we still cut off corn for freezing..every year my mom grows about 500-1000 ears.
We blanch it first and then sit down with a pan and cut it off and then scoop the kernels into bags and freeze. My mom does take the raw ears, wrap them in wax paper, then aluminum foil and freeze them that way. Then later they can be unwrapped and microwaved and taste just as good as the day they were picked.
Ed, your talk about shelling the beans brings to mind the shelling of butter beans…if my mom would let them mature a bit more I would probably like them better….LOL. She picks them barely grown and then tries to shell them…talk about aching thumbs…WOW! Now shelling peas like cowpeas, crowders…purple hulls, those I can do while talking or watching tv. My mom calls it her resting work.
Ok, making list of all those that love to shell and shuck…you can expect a phone call about mid July…..
Aho
Becky
Mousini:
We cut it off raw. When Mom cooked it before we cut it, it was not quite so messy. When we did it raw, the sticky juice got all over. But it really did taste good.
Techteach
OK, while grading papers (go figure!), I found the recipe to Wojapi or Berry Sauce that we had while in Pine Ridge. It takes 2 cups of berries, 2 cups of water, sugar to flavor it, and cornstarch or flour to thicken. Grind the berries with the water in the blender until most are ground up. Strain and simmer, adding more water if needed. Add sweetener and simmer some more. Bring it to a boil, while stirring in cornstarch or flour. You can use canned or frozen berries like raspberries or blueberries. We were given blueberry.
We were told that normally itis eaten by dipping frybread into it. I do South Beach, so I ate it plain. Delicious! Now, I have to find arrowroot starch to substitute for cornstarch for South Beach.
Techteach
Awesome recipe! I’m going to have to do this next time berries are on sale. Thanks for sharing! Aileen
I pick wild berries in the mountains all summer and fall. I mix berries and lard, crisco can be used in a pinch. No cooking or extra sugar needed. This goes good on crackers or plain.
I also make smoked berries by campfire. Taste like smoky raisins. Or I make regular raisins by laying out the berries on a plate, and leaving them in the car in the sun all day. Then I use them through out winter in cereal.
And of course I make jam.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.