Bean there, done that...

Photos by Donna Campbell

Last month I put out a call for butter bean stories. Butter beans were an essential side dish for summer suppers in my childhood. I have always loved them. At the end of a meal, my father would let me tip the serving bowl and drink the bean juice after all but the last few teeny beans were gone. Pot liquor! He and I also shared a love of Roquefort dressing, which we sometimes applied to the butter beans on our plates as if they were a hot salad. Fresh black pepper was a nice addition.

I still have and use my grandmother’s tin pan.

Gil Brock, a regular Food Pilgrim reader from Myrtle Beach, wrote to say that he, too, has memories of his grandfather’s butter bean patch. “As a child I remember shelling beans on the back porch before having them for dinner--or freezing them for later,” he wrote. Gil and life partner Karen recently managed to score some fresh limas at their local farmer’s market in South Carolina, “and we enjoyed them for dinner, just with butter and a little salt and pepper,” Gil said. “They really don't need anything else to be fantastic on their own, but if you like, you can move on to succotash.” Nah.

I can still hear the little baby butter beans hitting the bottom of my grandmother’s tin pan as she shelled them, zipping them open with her thumb and dropping the hulls onto a doubled sheet of newspaper right next to her rocker on the screened porch—the same porch where my grandfather got mad and shot a squirrel through the screen with his shotgun, and then never patched the wire. My grandfather had a temper, but he let me plant my own row of butter beans in his garden when I was five, hooking me for life on gardening and butter beans.

The Chatham County potter and good eater Nancy Hardin offered this commentary: “My father disliked lima beans, so none were served. When I was able to try them on my own, I agreed [with him] because they reminded me of undercooked fava beans. Later, living in South Louisiana,” Nancy continued, “I was introduced to baby limas seasoned with all that region has to offer. Yum.”

Nancy helps me remember--not fondly--those big, beefy and pale Fordhook limas that were served in my elementary school cafeteria in Atlanta—real chokers. (Actually, I have seen dried lima beans that make nice necklaces when strung and deftly painted.)

My purpose in proposing this topic, I must now confess, is to provide the rude news that we are having a butter bean shortage that has been developing over the last few years in this country. Have you noticed that they are sometimes missing in the freezer section at the grocery?

According Joshoa Cooper at Healingplantfoods.com, butter beans are a delicate and slow-growing crop that can be easily damaged by weather conditions. Farmers are lately choosing instead to grow black beans or pinto beans, which offer less risk from climate change and a quicker harvest. Plus, the current demand for butter beans is down. Have people lost a taste for them? I had never even considered a world without butter beans. This cannot stand!

Nutritionists tell us that butter beans are high in vitamins and minerals, including most B-vitamins (all except vitamin B12), and choline, which helps to develop a healthy brain. Lima beans are also high in iron and zinc--“essential nutrients for babies which they are unable to obtain in sufficient quantities in their diets,” said one source.

Limas and butter beans (the names are interchangeable, in this country at least) are legumes that are classified under the Phaseolus limensis species. While they are mostly grown now in California, they are a true southern bean, native to South America--Peru to be precise--hence the name, Lima.

They were first cultivated by the Incas, dating back to 7000 BC, according to The Oxford Companion to Food. They spread slowly over centuries to Mexico and the Caribbean and then to Africa and Asia. Baby lima beans are sweet and creamy, and they work well as an alternative to chickpeas in hummus. And for something really different, Gil Brock suggests this recipe from the late chef and Louisiana native Lee Bailey as a novel concoction with a comic pedigree:

Lee Bailey’s Baked Lima Beans and Pears from Nora Ephron’s film, “Heartburn”

3 10-ounce packages frozen lima beans (6 cups)

2 large ripe pears, cored, peeled and sliced crosswise

1 cup chicken broth (Bailey uses beef broth! Gil says)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup light molasses

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon pepper

Preheat oven to 200 degrees. In a heavy, 2-quart casserole, combine ingredients. Bake, covered tightly, about 8 hours.Yield: 6 servings.

Gil says: “I made this recipe one time with butter beans, but I used the big ones, and in the future I will use the small ones. I would also cut way back on the molasses and sugar. I don't like things too sweet, and the pears are sweet on their own.” Check. Thanks, Gil.

Vaughn Morrison from Ashe County, North Carolina, wrote to share the song that popped in his head when I asked for butter bean memories--“Just a Bowl of Butter Beans,” sung to the tune of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” by Little Jimmy Dickens. Warning: this is a serious ear worm that might cause you to yearn for a bowl of your own.

I plan to try Gil’s recipe with this summer’s pear crop while listening to Little Jimmy Dickens.