Shucky Beans and Collard Greens

Collard greens are a staple of Southern cuisine, yet I’ve never been brave enough to try them until tonight.  The idea of wet, wilty, cooked leaves was not particularly appealing; but the end result…delightful! 

My brother-in-law grows a vegetable garden.  He doesn’t like any vegetables.

“So why grow a garden?” I asked, bemused by my meat-and-potato-eating in-law, who turns up his nose at the fruits of his labor.

“I just like to watch things grow,” he replied with a sheepish grin.

So this winter, my mother-in-law and I have been the happy recipients of broccoli and collard greens.

“The greens are in,” my mother-in-law announced one evening this week.  “Gary gave me a bag to share.”

“Nice!” I exclaimed as I curiously opened the bag and inspected the greens.

The leaves were quite large with a stiff spine and strange waxy texture.

“What do we do with them?” I asked.

“Well, we need to give them a thorough washing.  They’ll probably be pretty gritty,” my mother-in-law replied.

“And we’ll need to tear off the spine and keep the leaves,” she continued.

“Okay, you wash. I’ll tear?” I offered.

I was surprised to find as I tore the washed greens that a light mustard-like fragrance was released.

As we cleaned the greens, we added them to a large stock pot with a bit of water and salt pork.  Yep.  You read correctly.  Salt pork.

As I’ve only read about salt pork in the Little House on the Prairie series, I assumed salt pork was a meat for individuals using a covered wagon as a primary mode of transportation. Apparently it did not go extinct with the invention of cars and refrigeration.  It’s a fatty cut of pork similar to strips of bacon, and it infuses a nice salty, meaty flavor to the greens.  My mother-in-law claims it’s available at my local supermarket.

Over the heat, the greens began to wilt as the leaves released alot of their moisture. We kept them on the heat until they reached the consistency of cooked cabbage.  Then we drained the water and let the greens cool.  Apparently they are best reheated after a couple days, giving the salt flavor of the pork a chance to really infuse into the greens.

“You know, I think I’d like some shucky beans with the greens.” my mother-in-law exclaimed.

“Huh?” I looked at her dumbly, not sure what plan she was hatching.

“You know, leather britches?” she explained.

“Leather britches?” I asked, not following at all.

Shucky beans, sometimes known as leather britches, are a Kentucky dish my father-in-law grew up eating.  They are dried green beans, cooked with a handful of dried pinto beans, and…you guessed it…salt pork.  Apparently a bit of fat makes all once-healthy vegetables happy.

Gary’s garden produced a nice crop of green beans last summer, and since green beans are…well…green, my brother-in-law was all too happy to share them with my mother-in-law.  She dried them in her dehydrator…and voila…shucky beans.

So tonight was the night to try the results of this family food affair.  Quite nice.  The greens were a crisper texture than the wilted mess I was imagining, and their taste was delicious – salty from the pork and poignant like cabbage with a hint of mustard.  The shucky beans were out of this world. Quite simply, they had a country taste that evoked images of pioneers and courageous survival. 

I can see why these foods are a Southern staple.

Tags: collard greens, Cooking, leather britches, salt pork, shucky beans, Southern Cuisine