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2. Add the limas, breaking up large clumps if you’re using frozen beans, and return to the boil. Adjust the heat so the water bubbles gently, cover, and cook for 20 to 25 minutes or until the beans are very tender.

3. Whisk the “pot likker” from the beans into the thickener, add to the limas, and cook and stir for 2 to 3 minutes or until lightly thickened. Mix in the butter, salt, pepper, and sugar and cook and stir 2 to 3 minutes longer until no raw floury taste lingers.

4. Ladle the limas and thickened “pot likker” into heated bowls and serve as an accompaniment to baked ham, fried chicken, or roast pork, turkey, or chicken.

And now, perhaps just for our diet’s healthy balance, a spoonful or two of those lima beans, as gay as April and as sweet as butter, a tomato slice or two, a speared forkful of those thin-sliced cucumbers…

—THOMAS WOLFE, OF TIME AND THE RIVER

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TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine

1913

Alcoa builds a factory to manufacture aluminum “tins” for canned foods just outside Maryville on the banks of the Little Tennessee River.

Relocating from Pennsylvania, Planters builds its first processing plant in Suffolk, Virginia, and soon becomes America’s largest processor of nuts.

Faced with a 500-pound surplus of raw peanuts, Philip L. Lance roasts them, packs them in serving-size paper bags, and sells them in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina, thereby launching one of America’s most successful snack food companies.

1914

Agronomist George Washington Carver, publishing the results of his peanut research at Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute, proves how nutritious the lowly legume is.

After receiving a peanut brittle recipe from a soldier at Camp Greene near Charlotte, North Carolina, Philip L. Lance and his partner, Salem Van Every, create the Peanut Bar. It remains one of Lance’s most popular snack foods.

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COUNTRY-STYLE SNAP BEANS

MAKES 4 TO 6 SERVINGS

My brother, Bob, used to make fun of the way Southerners cooked vegetables. “Turnip greens with fatback,” he’d say. “Collards with fatback, black-eyed peas with fatback, green beans with fatback.” He preferred the Brussels sprouts, Swiss chard, and parsnips that our Illinois mother cooked but I, on the other hand, loved the meaty flavor of southern greens and snap beans. I never got them at home but did at the home of Mrs. Franklin, a country-come-to-town woman who lived around the corner. I’d no sooner get home from school than I’d dash over to Mrs. Franklin’s to see what was left over from lunch. Usually there were snap beans prepared this way and corn pone for “sopping up the pot likker.” She served the leftovers at room temperature and I thought they were marvelous. Note: Because of the saltiness of the fatback, these beans may need no additional salt. But taste before serving and adjust as needed.

2 pounds snap (green) beans, washed, tipped, and snapped in two

4½ cups cold water

4 ounces fatback, rinsed well to remove excess salt, then quartered

½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Salt, if needed to taste

1. Place the beans, water, fatback, and pepper in a large, heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat. Adjust the heat so the water barely bubbles, cover, and cook for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until the beans are very tender. Taste for salt and season as needed.

2. Ladle the beans into small bowls and serve as an accompaniment to fried chicken or fish, roast chicken or pork, or baked ham. And don’t forget to put out a plate of corn bread, fresh from the oven.

SNAP BEANS WITH MUSTARD AND COUNTRY HAM

MAKES 4 SERVINGS

To many Southerners, green beans are “snap beans” because they “snap” when you break them. This recipe, my own, combines three southern favorites: green beans, mustard, and country ham. I like these beans best with roast turkey, grilled or roast chicken. But they’re equally delicious with pork chops or roast