Butterbeans, Butterbeans, Good For Your Heart ...

I am sure everyone can finish that singsong from childhood. Perhaps vulgar and crude, but nonetheless truthful. There seems to be two schools of thought on butterbeans. 1. Butterbeans are a different variety of bean than Lima Beans. 2. Butterbean is another name for lima beans, they are the same. I am a graduate of school #1. In my grandmother's kitchen a lima bean was a giant dried bean most often cooked in the fall or winter, simmered on the stove in water with a small piece of ham or fatback added for flavor. Butterbeans, mmmm, butterbeans were small and light green, pale with speckles gently cooked on the stovetop after a morning of sitting on the porch and shelling until your thumbnail was tinted green from the pods. I will eat the dried bean. I admit to eating them over rice with raw white onion chopped and sprinkled on the top but I love fresh summer butterbeans. I go out of my way to search them out at farmer's markets, buying them by the bushel and hoarding them in my freezer so that in the long months of winter I can have them and not the dried lima beans. A very sharp eye can spot a real butterbean in the freezer section of the grocery store, but I know those go fast. I have even seen the real deal for sale in 5 pound bags, frozen, on the internet. My favorite meal in the summer is gently simmered butterbeans, fresh creamed corn, slices of fresh vine ripened red tomatoes and cornbread. Each cooked exactly like my grandmother taught me. Each a delicate summer offering yearned for in the throws of winter. Each one is prepared with a very simple recipe. This is how my grandmother taught me. Please note, southern recipes almost always contain fatback or a piece of ham, you don't have to use it but you can't imagine what you are missing. Butterbeans Get yourself a mess of butterbeans. Sit on the porch in late afternoon or early morning and shell them into a pan. At the sink in cold water look the beans, searching for imperfections and flaws that would be evidence of insect feasting, throw those out. Once looked and washed place them in a pot of cold water, enough water to be twice as deep as the beans. They need lots of water to make good pot liquor. Add one thin strip of fatback or ham, NOT bacon!, and gently simmer until the beans are fork tender. Creamed Corn Select fresh, juicey ears of corn. Shuck, desilk and wash the ears in cold water. With a deep pan and a very sharp knife, cut the tips of the kernels from the cob. When you have the entire cob detipped rake your knife over the cob to milk it of all the delicious juices and inner fillings of the kernel. This is a job that will create great splatters until you get the hang of it. It can be very messy and require much clean up, but it is worth your efforts! In a cast iron frying pan melt a stick of butter, gently, do not let it melt too fast or it will burn. Whent he butter and pan are hot, pour in the creamed corn, juice and all. Keep the heat low and stir frequently so that the corn does not scorch and stick. Add salt and pepper to taste until the corn is tender and soft, not crunchy to the teeth. If you follow the same process and cook that corn in drippings from fatback you will then have "fried creamed corn". Equally as delicious as it's cousin cooked in butter. How to choose perfect ears of corn: Do not be shy in your produce market. Be selective of the corn you choose. Old corn will be dry and not have much milk and it will taste like eating cow feed. With your thumbnail break the husk on the corn so that you can see the kernels. With that same nail push into the top of the kernel. It should break easily and give you a burst of corn milk. That is a good ear of corn. When you get home with the corn, do not let it sit for more than a day in your refrigerator. The corn will dry out much too fast and your dish will not be tastey. When shopping at a farmer's market I always buy a bushel at a time. I take it home and get busy right then, shucking, desilking and creaming it for the freezer. Juicey corn waits for no man and will turn hard on you in no time. There are also two schools of thought on corn. 1. Yellow 2. White I prefer white with some yellow mixed in for creamed corn. For corn-on-the-cob, roasted on the grill or boiled, I prefer yellow. For corn-on-the-cob to be cook in the same pot as summer peas I like some of both. For those who are health conscious and are gasping at cooking in real butter and fatback, you are missing out on some of the best eating you will ever partake of. It is the fat that lends great flavor. In my kitchen butter and pork fat RULE! It is good stuff and in moderation it is not bad for you! Fatback and butter are not causes for remorse! Peel and slice the tomato thinly and arrange the slices on a plate, letting the edges of the rounds slightly over lap, a beautiful red circling of tomatoes. Sprinkle lightly with salt and black pepper. Cornbread Check back later for cornbread. It deserves a posting of its own! You cannot beat this meal! Bon Apetite! Note for Jo: Search for fresh frozen butterbeans. You will NEVER eat one from a can again. If you love butterbeans you will find equal joy in a butterpea. I promise!