"Shucky" Bean aka Leather Bean

Discovering such a simple item like the "shucky" Bean aka Leather Britches may provide you with an insight to the ways of folks isolated in some instances for years in the hills and the hollers of the mountain regions. Life for most was difficult and they survived on things they grew or foraged for or the game they hunted. Folks still string their beans and hang them to dry in a protected area still. These as well as root crops and other preserved food items provide them meals for their long winter months.
Gary/Louisville

Shucky Beans aka Leather Britches
http://www.mountain-breeze.com/kitchen/recipes/28.html

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“Shelly beans” are green beans that are old enough that the pods are tougher, ... Well, in an improvised fusion between Appalachian Hillbilly cookin’ and

Beans are in my blood.
I grew up eating them, child of Appalachia that I am.
A cheap source of protein, dried beans were not only an easy meal, but they were a way of life, especially in the wintertime.
When the weather was cold and blustery, the remedy was to put on a pot of beans.
And a “pot of beans” meant beans seasoned with some sort of pork, whether it was a hamhock, fatback, jowl bacon or even just a dab of bacon grease. An onion, a bay leaf and maybe some garlic might go in the pot, but they were all optional.
The necessary item for a good pot of beans was some sort of pork product, preferably smoke cured. That is what added depth and a sweet smokiness to the beans, and made the broth, known in some families as “pot likker,” a heavenly brew. I was notorious for craving the bean juice as much as the beans themselves, and would drink it like soup from a mug if I was allowed.


Table of contents for Appalachian home cooking : history, culture, and recipes
Edited to remove severl links to some interesting article since they would not work here

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This message was edited Oct 11, 2006 9:49 PM