Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

nafex - Re: [NAFEX] heirloom veggies

nafex@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Donna &/or Kieran" <holycow@cookeville.com>
  • To: <jas39a@earthlink.net>, "North American Fruit Explorers" <nafex@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [NAFEX] heirloom veggies
  • Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2008 12:47:15 -0600


A nearly completely lost vegetable is the type of bean known as a cutshort or a shortcut, aka cornfield bean, bunch bean, fodder bean.  The knuttle bean looks like one of this type, but I haven't grown it to know if the hull is tough on it.  A cutshort is usually a pole bean with smallish pods that start out very flat and wind up bumpy becasue the seeds grow large in a very thin tender hull.  The hull never gets tough.  You let them get fat, then string them.  You can then cook them up or dry them hulls and all.  Reconstituted, they taste almost identical to their fresh taste.  Eaten fresh or dried, they look like a mix of green beans and shelly beans.  This is my absolute favorite type of bean.  The modern ones are like eating zucchini, mostly water.  
    A very few companies offer strains of this formerly widely grown type.  Southern Exposure is one of them, Sandhill Preservation is another.  I have mostly gotten mine from Seed Savers members and from older local gardeners.  They were nearly wiped out by the recommendations through the 50's and 60's to stop saving your bean seed and buy blight free seed grown out west.  As southerners began using canning jars the emodern modern fleshy stringless varieties became popular, but many families kept their old seed too because of the superior flavor.  As recently as 15 years ago I was told that most of the local women who were famous for their canned green beans were canning heirloom beans. However, each year there seem to be fewer jars of the old cutshort and caseknife varieties in the county fair.        Donna   



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page