Some varieties of beans have three strings, one on the outer side and two on the inner side of the bean. (The inside of the bean is the side within the curl that almost all heirloom beans have.) The two strings on the inner side of three-string beans are side by side, each “zipping” its own half of the bean pod, and the two strings peel off easily together.
Wax Beans
Although wax beans are not widely grown in the mountains, many gardeners keep at least one variety. Wax beans are pale, from yellow to almost white. Some people use them in three-bean salads, and some cook them for use in the same way as green beans. They range from very thin hulls to exceptionally thick hulls and tend to have a less “beany” flavor than do green beans or purple-hulled beans (which turn green when cooked).
Butter Beans
Many Appalachian gardeners also keep at least one variety of butter bean, ranging from white to deep purple in color. Many are striped or speckled. They do not cross with green beans or wax beans, but they do cross readily with one another. Their hulls are not eaten, and they are much later than green beans in maturing, sometimes taking 120 days, so they must be planted early to ensure that they reach maturity before frost. I do not know of any heirloom bush butter bean grown in the Southern Appalachians; the heirloom varieties require cornstalks, poles, or trellises to yield effectively. They can be shelled prior to the hulls becoming dry as shelly beans and may be eaten without having to be rehydrated, but most people tend to eat them as dry beans because they store well.
Butter beans often come with stories attached. One Kentucky gardener has butter beans that can be traced back to the end of the Civil War. His great-grandfather was near New Orleans at the end of the war and had to walk back to Kentucky. Whenever he passed a garden where butter beans were being grown, he would collect some of them, and he ended up with an amazing array of colors. In retirement, Joe Richards keeps growing them at his home in Somerset, Kentucky.
Types of Heirloom Beans in Tennessee
John Coykendall, master gardener for the Blackberry Farm Resort, has long experimented with heirloom and heritage vegetable seeds. In the following two sections he discusses the many old-time bean varieties he has collected.
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Collecting Beans in Tennessee
John Coykendall
During the years that I have been collecting beans in Tennessee, it soon became evident that the vast majority of old varieties to be found were in rural counties in or near the Smoky Mountains region of East Tennessee.
It was in isolated coves and hollows that I found most of the old bean varieties that I collected. Families in these regions had saved their own unique varieties down through the years. Often these old varieties had special characteristics that had developed over time, through selection and isolation.
There were beans for each growing season; some tolerated early spring planting when the soil was still cold, while others were grown during the hot summer months, and these included stick beans, pole beans, and cornfield beans, which were somewhat shade tolerant and suited for growing in cornfields. There were also a number of fall or October beans that thrive during late summer and early fall.
Most people are familiar with the dry shell types of horticultural beans, which have tough hulls at all stages of development. Not many people, however, are aware that there are a number of tender-hull October bean varieties that were once commonly grown.
I have five different October beans in my collection that come from Campbell and Greene Counties here in East Tennessee. With the tender-hull October beans you had a multipurpose bean; they were good to use at all stages of development, including fresh shell beans. In late fall the dried pods were gathered and shelled out to be used as dry beans during the winter.
One of my earliest memories of beans was “leather britches.” I remember seeing them hanging on long strings from rafter poles, on the front porches of farmhouses, or from nails on the walls of back porches. I especially remember a neighbor lady in a calico dress with a large apron and wearing a split bonnet. She was sitting on the front porch of her cabin stringing up green beans to be dried for winter use.
Today a few people still string up leather britches, although the necessity of doing so is long past. For some it is a part of a nostalgic tradition that is still being carried on. Perhaps for many it is carrying on what they remember their parents and grandparents doing. For others it may be the unique old-time flavor that awakens memories from long ago. For me leather britches represent a celebration of our culinary traditions, along with history, heritage, and a way of life that is unique to our mountain region.
As seed savers we are not only preserving old varieties; we are also keeping them alive by “using” them, selling them at farmers’ markets, and introducing them to chefs who are always on the lookout for something unique for their culinary creations.
My personal favorite method for preparing leather britches is to cook them in a cast iron pot over a slow fire and season them with a piece of smokehouse meat. They are also excellent with potatoes cooked on top of the beans, and the addition of a potato onion also enhances the flavor. In this region, greasy and cut-short beans were commonly used to make leather britches, although a number of other types were also used.
A Few of the Old Tennessee Bean Varieties
Occasionally when collecting seeds I will be given a variety with a name that suggests its origin. Two examples come to mind—the first being Old Time German, which is a strikingly beautiful bean with pods that are light green in the early stages of development and light pinkish violet when fully mature. The elongated seeds are light pink-gray-tan in color, and the flowers are a faded pink-violet hue, making a beautiful addition to either flower or vegetable gardens. The second example is called Old German and is similar to the white half-runner types. During the mid-1800s, a good number of Germans settled in East Tennessee, so they may have brought seeds from these beans with them from Germany. Both examples are pole beans.
Most of the old bean varieties that I have are pole beans, and that seems to be the case down through the history of our region. One of my old mountain friends, Herb Clabo of Sevier County, Tennessee, who is now one hundred years old, once told me, “If hit’s worth havin’ it’s worth stickin’,” and I have found that to be true for my preferences.
Although the greatest diversity of bean varieties is to be found in the mountains of western North Carolina and the eastern sections of Kentucky, in East Tennessee, especially in the mountain regions, a good number of old beans are still to be found that have been grown, preserved, and handed down through the generations.
To a lesser extent there are still some old varieties being grown on the Cumberland Plateau, but in West Tennessee where the country is flat and large-scale mechanized farming has been practiced over a long period of time, old varieties fell out of favor and were replaced with modern varieties. This is not to say that old varieties don’t exist in West Tennessee; it is that their numbers are fewer, far between, and difficult to locate.
Below are listed some of the more unusual varieties that I have collected over the years. With the exception of a number of white-seeded beans, the vast majority of beans have beautiful seed coat mottling and are works of art worthy of display.
Milk and Cider—One of my personal favorites is a pole bean called Milk and Cider that came from Claiborne County, Tennessee. The green pods are from five to six inches long with slightly curved pods. The beans’ seed coat mottling resembles the Turkey Craw Bean, with the exception that the light gray color appears as though it had been airbrushed onto the seed coat. As is the case with many of the old bean varieties, Milk and Cider remains tender at all stages of growth, right up to full maturity when the pods are well filled out.
Southern Cornfield—The Southern Cornfield bean was collected in Sevier County, Tennessee, and was once commonly grown