butter bean noun A small lima bean.
1949 Kurath Word Geog East US 73 Butter beans is a common expression for lima beans in all of the Southern area. Many people in this section differentiate between the large lima beans and the smaller butter beans. 1962 Wilson Folkways Mammoth Cave 14 The butter bean, a small, flat bean grown all over the South and called by many names, can be taken as a sort of test word for the region; to call it a Lima bean would still subject you to questioning as to where you live at, for Lima beans are fetch-on, either dried, as in former times, or frozen, as now.
—Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English
This is the third year we’ve grown butter beans. The first ones we grew were a light tan color and they were tasty. But Debbie from Bryson Farm Supply shared some colorful butter beans with us. They taste just as good and a bonus is seeing those beautiful vibrant colors. Even though I’ve opened many pods I never get tired of seeing the jewel colored beans.
We grew them in a different area of the garden this year and they produced better although they don’t put out near the amount green beans do for us.
Most often I cook butter beans straight off the vine, but we have also dried some for future use and they cook up good too.
This year we planted a longer row and have had more to dry for winter use which I’m very excited about.
I cook butter beans in much the same way I do soup beans, but they don’t take as long to cook as pintos or other dried beans. Usually I’m in a hurry and throw them in the instant pot (pressure pot) for about 20 minutes or so with some bacon or fat back. They are so good with a cake of cornbread and a big tall glass of milk! Unfortunately they don’t hold that beautiful color when cooked.
If you’d like to grow colorful butter beans search online for Christmas butter beans or speckled butter beans or multi colored butterbeans. There are several companies that sell them.
Last night’s video: Gardening: Touchy Subject, Diplomacy, Grow What You Know, Amazing Power of the Garden.
Tipper
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I have made butter beans a few times. They have a bitter taste to them. What is the secret to rid them of the bitterness?
Janice-I’m sorry I’ve not had that experience so I’m not sure. You might try seasoning them with something different? I use meat or meat grease but you might try something like olive oil.
I AGREE WITH KATIE CULVER ALSO RANDY. ONE HAS TO HAVE A BIG CHUNK OF CORNBREAD TO CRUMBLE UP IN THER BOWL OF BUTTYBEANS. YOU FOLKS ARE MAKING THIS OLD MAN HUNGRY. ONCE AGAIN THANK YOU TIPPER YOU AND THE DEER HUNTER ARE THE BEST.
I love colored butter beans. My mom used to cook them a lot. Miss her very much. Every year we go Apple-picking in Hendersonville. We stop at this little open-air market and that is what I get. Colored butter beans. Yum!
They’re almost too pretty to plant! But then I remember, one bean in the dirt means many on the plate.
Didn’t have time to comment when I first saw the butter beans you had in your hand, but came back. I was down south at my parents visiting when my Mother cooked some purple speckled butter beans. Oh my were they delicious. After my parents passed, I looked for those beans and couldn’t find them till one time at a farmer’s market near Tupelo, MS. I found a bag of them in a refrigerated section and was I tickled!!! Most beautiful and tasty butter bean I’ve had. Haven’t been able to find them since. A huge almost white background bean with shimmering sparkles of purple specks on them. I still keep looking:)
Tipper, they’re beautiful!! At first glance, I thought they were stones in your hand, until I read the headline again. I could picture a whole jar full of those beautiful colors, like a jar of marbles or buttons! Enjoy, and thanks as always for sharing.
Nope, nope, nope! I never did acquire a taste for butter beans, Lima beans , or by any other name. However, I did learn a fun song about them:
Just a bowl of butter beans,
Pass the cornbread if you please.
I don’ want no collard greens,
Just a bowl o’ them good ole butter beans!
Gimme the collards any day! Anybody else know that song?
We always had the speckled Christmas butter beans but my absolute favorite was butter peas
When I would visit my grandparents’ house in north Louisiana when I was younger, we always had butter beans because they grew them in their garden. We always had the speckled beans, and my mom referred to them as butter beans. We use the words “lima bean” to mean the large white bean and the small green bean. It’s interesting how certain foods are labeled differently not only between all the states, but also between just the southern states.
thankyou for the info on butter beans. My cousin from Texas uses them in a casserole that I ask her to make for our family picnic when they come to Canada for the summer.
Tipper, I soooo enjoy the picture of the beautiful beans!! Makes me want to put on a pot on a cold day, along with cornbread.
Sometimes I’ve had cans of lima or white beans, where I’m sooo hungry that I open the can and eat it without heating it up. Same thing with avocados, peal and eat. What can I say other than….I’m hungry .
Blessings to you and your family, hi to Granny, give her hugs and kisses from Oklahoma.
I love cold foods. I keep canned pork-n-beans in the refrigerator.
Beautiful beautiful. I bet they taste as good as they look! Enjoy!
Love those colorful butter beans! Look so yummy. I was just sitting here going thru my favorite recipes for one I want to make and the thought struck me how sad it would be to loose all my favorite printed recipes. It is hard to comprehend what people have lost in the flooding. Keeping those affected in my prayers.
I never knew butter beans were the same as linaa’s. My mother made the most delicious pots of butter beans and corn. They did not grow them but we had a family friend who did. He and dad were buddies doing all sorts of projects together and working the garden was one of them sometimes. Their silver queen corn was our favorite. Mama froze bags of both and her pot of butter beans and corn was some of the best eating there was. I do not know the variety of bb’s they were – just usually light green but she was always tickled to get some speckled ones on the rare occasion too. These days PictSweet (frozen) brand is the only brand I have found that even comes close to those small butter beans I remember but they dont really live up to my memory of the fresh from the garden ones. . They are hard to find in my area.
A colorful handful, Tipper, fits right in to the colors of the fall season. Too bad they wouldn’t stay as colorful when cooked. Beans of all kinds are one of my staples. I also have found they work well thrown into ‘your’ tomato gravy! (after they are cooked of course.)
Daddy was the butter bean cook in my family. It was his favorite vegetable, and he would cook a big pot seasoned with fatback then he would fry fatback and mama would make cornbread. I know it wasn’t healthy but boy was it delicious! When I make vegetable soup, I always have to have some butter beans in it because it just wouldn’t taste the same without them. Have a blessed day everyone!!
Gloria I have ate food like you mentioned all of my life and it didn’t concern me one bit about whether it was healthy or not, I was only concerned with it tasting good. I worked hard manual labor jobs all of my life and kept all of the bad stuff sweated out I guess. I sweated, educated high class folks perspire. I am 70 years old and except for arthritis am healthy. My yearly blood work showed everything being good. I was asked if my heart ever felt like it was fluttering or did I ever have trouble breathing, I told my nurse only when a pretty girl came by! She ran me out of the office and said I didn’t have one lick of sense.
Mom never raised butter beans so I guess I never acquired a taste for them. Besides not liking them, they have a grainy texture I could never get used to. I might occasionally buy a can, but I have never cooked them from fresh or dried beans.
We ate lots of butter beans as a child in Bluefield, W Va. What we called limas or limaries were cooked differently. Butter beans were soupy, limas were served more dry in a bowl. You mentioned fatback. One of my lasting memories was going up the hill to my MawMaw Smith’s house next door and she’d fry me some fat back and wrap it in a piece of white bread and I’d eat it hot. Haven’t had fried fatback in many years but still a favorite memory.
Miss Tipper, Just reading about a pot of delicious beans makes my mouth water plus thinking about the great taste of cornbread, I’d bake, to go with those beans, oh my. Now that’s a meal. Love ya Miss Tipper.
I grew up eating butter and lima beans. My mother made them with fatback or bacon depending on what was on hand. I’ve always enjoyed them. My mother-in-law grew them, and she and I were the only ones who liked them. My mother froze a lot of them. I never saw the multi-colored butter beans though only the green or tan ones.
I have to say I never cared for butter beans unless Granny made them. She’d put together some kind of sweet sauce made with milk and then I’d eat them. My mom’s butter beans were just plain with a dab of butter. Never cared for black-eyed peas neither. Both the butter beans and the black-eyes always felt funny in my mouth and kind of mealy too. Many years later come to find out that I’m allergic to both. God made our bodies to recognize what can be a problem for us I suppose. Our family always cooked down the pintos for several hours so I ate those just fine. A bowl of the pintos with a biscuit would set me up for the day.
When I saw that handful of beans I thought, “Those would look good in a clear glass lamp base.” Then I read your thoughts and saw the “Christmas” word. I can’t figure out why somebody doesn’t make a lamp just to enable varying the fill. I know, the answer is to make one’s own. As for butter beans, never knew anybody to grow them in southeastern KY back in what are now ‘the old days’ when I was young. Makes me wonder why I didn’t. I think I started hearing about them first in northwest Georgia around 1983. But I’m all for home gardens even if it is growing rutabagas (however it is spelled!).
I’m wondering since you mentioned them whether Bryson Farm Supply will be or has reopened. Sounds like it would be worth a sidetrack from a road trip to visit.
Don-as far as I know they will not reopen.
I had no idea butter beans came in so many beautiful varieties. I’ve only had white butter beans in my life. Thank you for sharing them with us.
Are those in your hand all the same variety? Have done a lot of googling and it seems the Christmas butter beans are just speckled. None of the pretty solid colors as yours are. Would love to find a source for a handful of those.
Don-I found them here: https://www.southernexposure.com/products/violet-s-multicolored-butterbeans-pole-lima-bean/ I should have said multi color 🙂 I will add that to the post.
that’s some strange looking butter beans, reminds me of Indian corn
Thank you Tipper! very interesting! When I was growing up in Indiana, we called the large lima beans, butter beans and the small ones Lima Beans. lol
Loved your story today. Lima beans are my favorite . I cook them with butter and salt and pepper. Best wishes to your family and Granny.
Larry, I am the same way, I pretty much like all beans except for those large thumbnail size green or white lima beans. I can and have ate them but can just as easily do without them. Sadie back when I was growing up at home, you ate whatever was put on the table and was glad to get it. There was no picky kids when it came to eating, only hungry kids. As I said before in my family and for others like us, if you couldn’t grow, raise, or make it, you did without, very, very little was bought in a grocery store and unlike today buying or eating at restaurants was unheard of.
I was tellin my cousin about your channel yesterday when she text me, my sister and another cousin a pic of the chocolate gravy she made. The other cousin said “I’ve never heard of such a thing” and the one who made it replied “really, I grew up on that!” We’re all from East Central IL, but our mom’s family all came from KY
Lorie-love that 🙂
Had no idea beans could be so beautiful. These look like stones Katie might use in her creations.
When I was a kid sent to Norfolk, VA, there was an old granny in her 80’s in the late 1970’s. She raved on about succotash and let me just tell you those Lima beans, butter beans, speckled beans or Christmas beans will stick forever in my mind. Succotash had all sorts of vegetables in there and was a hodge pudge of sorts. I did not like it and to this day, limas are seldom served at my place. Usually it’s going to be pintos or Octobers or cranberries here. If you don’t have canned tomatoes and an onion, I’ll pass on those beans too. Beans are indeed a magical fruit… have a good day y’all and have some succotash (grits and okra too) soon! Have my share too!
They sure are pretty. God has a way of bringing beauty to the simplest of things.
My father always said that he never met a bean that he didn’t like. I’m the same way and butter beans and hot homemade cornbread with butter are a real treat.
Gonna be in search of these pretty things…bet they are wonderful. Short comment today…busy busy. Prayers still for Granny and God’s Blessing to all of you guys.
I love butter beans, cooked with a chunk of fatback and a pone of cornbread to go along with them. The old time Jackson Wonder variety are my favorite ones to grow. For me butter beans are NOT the same as Lima beans. They have a completely different taste. I love eating them but always hated picking and shelling them. We most often ate or froze them fresh off the vine, we did not dry them.