Soup Beans

While laying out a bag of beans this afternoon so I don’t forget to soak them tonight, it dawned on me that I’ve never written about soup beans before.

First, let me clarify what beans are used to make “soup beans”…several different kinds of beans can be soup beans. Pinto, Cranberry, October, Great Northern, and mixed beans all work out very well.

I’ve eaten soup beans my whole life. As a kid, Mom would make a large pot of soup beans early in the week, and they would be dinner for that night, and the next couple after that. She got that habit from her parents, my grandparents, as they had beans every day of the week.

And that’s not an exaggeration. Every day of my life until they both had passed, there were soup beans on the table for dinner every single day. On Sundays, they would cook some kind of meat to go with them. And the other days of the week they would open jars of vegetables they had canned to go with them, and cornbread was always on the table as well.

This is how they grew up themselves, so it just came naturally.

In a time when grocery stores were still unheard of, the people in this region lived on what they raised. By the deepest part of winter, many families’ cellars were looking empty, and fresh food was unavailable.  With no fresh-seal packaging or refrigeration, dried beans proved to be a lifesaver for struggling families and it was out of these times that “soup beans” were created — often with the person mixing cornbread, beans, and onions into a bowl to create the soupy, mountain-culinary masterpiece.

Soup beans ladled over hot cornbread is still my preferred way to eat them. And while I’ve been blessed and do not need to have soup beans on the table every day as a means of financial survival, I still make a small pot on an almost weekly basis because they are just that damn good when done right. Well, that coupled with the fact that the smell of those soup beans cooking, take me back to a place in time when I was a kid hanging out in my grannie’s kitchen, or sitting at the table in Mom’s kitchen doing homework at the table, and could smell those delicious beans cooking.

The beans will be ready by 2pm tomorrow for Sunday dinner. If you’re in the neighborhood, stop by and I’ll treat you to a bowl of this mountain delicacy and you can smell the nostalgia as the steam rises from the bowl.