Shuck Beans or Leather Britches

The Washington Post called Victuals “a love letter to Appalachia, with recipes.” If those seven words aren’t enough to convince you to pick up Ronni Lundy’s new cookbook, the heartfelt narration and evocative photography inside should do the trick. Lundy, a Kentucky-born food writer now residing in Asheville, hits the road on a quest to uncover the foodways, people, places, and recipes of the Mountain South, from her great-aunt’s apple stack cake to Virginia chef Travis Milton’s sour corn. Here she muses on the role of beans in Southern Appalachia.

Shuck Beans or Leather Britches

 “Leather britches” or “shuck beans” refers to the method of preserving certain types of green beans by drying them in their pods. Rehydrated and cooked, the skins take on the texture of silk and nearly dissolve on the tongue, while the beans are tender, rich, and velvety. 

Shuck beans were traditionally strung on thread and hung in a dry place out of sunlight until they fully dried. The beans shrivel and curl as they dry, and the story goes that they looked like leather britches that had gotten wet and then dried out, hence that name. Shuck beans, which is what my family and many folks call them, or shucky beans, as others say it, refers to the fact that they were dried “in the shuck.” (Beans that were popped out of their shuck, or pod, were called “shell-outs” or “shellies.”) And in a very few parts of the southern Appalachians, shuck beans are referred to as “fodder beans.” 

When the beans are dried, they can be put away in cloth or paper bags (some folks put in a dried pepper to keep out insects), or in more modern times, stored in jars or tins or plastic bags. Some folks freeze them in airtight bags, but they will keep a couple of years if tightly enclosed and stored on a shelf out of sunlight. 

Beans were preserved this way to provide much-needed protein through the long mountain winters. Remember that part about protein, because we’ll come back to it in a minute. The commonly accepted folklore of the mountain South says this was a tradition among the southeastern tribes, and contemporary Cherokee people continue to make shuck beans, as do other southern Appalachians today. But it appears that the practice may have originated in Germany and been brought to the mountains by early settlers from the Palatinate, and then adopted by the rest of the people in the region. Getrocknete bohnen is the term used in Germany to refer to any number of dried beans, including whole green beans strung on thread and dried exactly as described here. 

Whoever started it, mountain people universally embraced the dish, and today, long past the need for preserving every morsel from the garden to get through the winter, southern Appalachians still dry green beans. Many folks like to do it the old way with the ristra-like strings of beans hung on an enclosed porch, in the attic, or in an out-of-the-way corner. You can also dry beans the way many do apples, by spreading them on a large screen or sheet strung taut between sawhorses. A few folks dry beans in an electric dehydrator, but most of us who’ve had such will tell you that they just don’t seem to taste as good. 

And taste brings us to protein. The green beans the early settlers dried were fat and full of beans—the source of the meaty flavor that gives this dish its body. Shuck beans were made with beans at the end of the harvest season, often the last beans from the vine. 

In many mountain families, shuck beans are a traditional part of the feast for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and/or New Years. In my family, though, they were a much-beloved winter supper, served only with plenty of hot real corn bread and sliced raw onion on the side.

You Will Need

• 4 cups dried shuck beans 
• 2 ounces seasoning meat, such as salt pork or ham hock 
• 1 teaspoon salt, plus extra if needed 

To Prepare

• If the beans are still on the thread, cut the knots at both ends and slide them off, discarding the thread. 
• Break the whole beans into smaller pieces, and as you do, pull off any strings you may have missed when they were fresh. Place the beans in a colander and rinse them lightly to rid them of any dust that may have settled while drying. Transfer the beans to a large pot and add 2 quarts of water (if you’re cooking more beans, just press them down with your hand and make sure there’s enough water to cover them by an inch). 
• Place the salt pork or other seasoning meat in the pot. Bring the water to a rapid boil, then turn the heat down to a lively simmer and cover the pot. You want there to be bubbles among the beans, but not to let the water bubble hard enough to rattle the lid. Cook for 3 hours, checking the water level often and adding boiling water if the level falls below the beans. Remember that the beans will be buoyant for some time, so use a large spoon or spatula to press down to see what the actual water level is. Be careful to not let the pot boil dry! 
• After 3 hours, test a bean (the actual bean) to see if it breaks open easily and is tender inside. The skin may be a little tough, but the inner part of the bean should be soft, not chalky. If not quite there, cover and cook a little longer, testing every 10 to 15 minutes. When a bean tests ready, add 1 teaspoon salt, turn the heat up to a lively boil, and partially cover the pot. Cook for an additional 30 minutes at a lively boil. During this time, you are letting the beans finish tenderizing and also reducing the amount of liquid in the pot. You want the cooking water to evaporate enough so that the beans are just starting to come out of the liquid but are not stranded and dry on top. 
• Test another bean and this time you are looking for a fully creamy interior. The pieces of the pods will be translucent and feel like silk. If you think the beans need to cook longer, lower the heat back to a lively simmer and continue cooking and testing until they are done. Then remove from the heat, fully cover the pot, and let rest for 20 minutes. 
• Taste the beans and add more salt, if needed. The amount of salt will vary depending on how salty the seasoning meat is. Remove the salt pork and serve.

Excerpted with permission from Victuals. Copyright © 2016 by Ronni Lundy. Photographs copyright © 2016 by Johnny Autry. Published by Clarkson Potter/Publishers, an imprint of Penguin Random House, LLC.