Types of Soup Beans
While soup beans are traditionally brown beans, other types of beans are also used.
- White Beans — Great northern beans and Navy beans are often used to make a soup bean dish. This became more common as residents of rural areas began to rely more on store-bought beans and could afford more variety. This dish is typically referred to as "white beans" although it is occasionally called soup beans. Along with the beans, white beans are typically cooked in the juice of a country ham, often with the ham bone or ham included in the dish. As such, this dish is a prized part of holiday meals, when hams are baked. White beans are sometimes cooked with pork fat like brown soup beans, although this is less common. White beans carried an air of sophistication because they were first available in towns to people who could afford more than one type of bean and ham, as opposed to poorer rural people who often raised only brown beans.
- Butter Beans — butter beans are used to make the soup bean dish called butter beans. These dried limas are cooked, with smoked pork and/or ham until the sauce starts to thicken, hence the name "butter" beans. Like white beans, butter beans represented prosperity and were often prized dishes when served. Butter beans only refers to dried limas. Fresh or canned limas are called "lima beans".
- Black-eyed Peas — While these peas are almost never referred to as "soup beans", the preparation in the Appalachian region is almost identical. Black-eyed Peas, sometimes called blackeye peas, are most common where Appalachian culture intersects with lowland soul-food and coastal food cultures. Like Hoppin' John, black-eyed peas became common as a new year's dish. However, since rice was not a part of mountain culture, the peas were cooked with pork (usually hog jowls) like soup beans and served with stewed tomatoes and collard greens. This dish becomes less common as you move into more isolated mountain communities.
Red kidney beans and mediterranean beans, peas, and lentils have never been a significant part of mountain culture.
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