I was never one to like the small green peas that often come to mind when one hears the word pea. The Deer Hunter loves them and although the girls don’t care for them today, they would scarf them up when they were still eating from their high chairs. I think they liked chasing the small green balls around on the tray with their tiny chubby fingers as much as they enjoyed eating them.
Granny and Pap loved black eyed peas and we had them often when I was growing up, but I never liked them as much as the soup beans Granny made.
Once we begin gardening I planted sugar snap peas almost every year. Most of them we consumed by standing in the garden and eating out of hand.
A couple of years ago Jim Casada shared some crowder pea seeds with us. We grew them and really enjoyed them dried and fresh.
Last year we played at a church over in Suches GA and I had the best peas I’ve ever eaten! You can read more about them here.
After tasting the peas from Suches, Granny and I both decided we must grow more peas and plant some butter beans too. A lot of folks in our area call lima beans butter beans.
We made sure to plant both in our gardens this year.
Granny had some red hull peas that climb and we planted Mississippi pink eye bush peas. I can’t tell the difference between the two, but even if there is a difference, they both taste amazing.
I can’t recall the variety of butter beans we grew. Granny got a big pack from Wayne’s Feed Store in Murphy and we shared the seeds.
The Deer Hunter and I have eaten so many peas this summer. And we’ve loved every bite!
I’ve had an instant pot for several years, but rarely use it. The times it’s been used was when either The Deer Hunter or the girls made something in it.
The first day I had a mess of peas big enough to cook for supper I was running late. I threw them in the instant pot with some water and a piece of bacon and pressured them for 20 minutes. Oh my they were good. So good that I’ve continued to cook them like that all summer.
Last week I finally had enough butter beans to add to the peas. Not knowing how quickly they would cook I added five minutes to the pressure time and stuck with my water and bacon.
It was literally one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. I told The Deer Hunter “Well now I know why so many folks call lima beans butter beans. Once cooked to the point of doneness achieved with the instant pot they melted in our mouths like butter.
Of course we ate them over cornbread with fresh cucumbers and tomatoes from the garden and fried squash from the garden. It was a true feast.
The Deer Hunter said there was only one problem. Astonished I said “What? How could this get any better?” He said “We’ve got to figure out where to plant more peas and butter beans before next summer because we’re going to need a whole lot of them.”
Last night’s video: The Garden is Winding Down in Appalachia | Talking Bee Stings and Next Year’s Garden.
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Peas and butter beans are a staple in South Georgia and Low Country South Carolina. They are eaten every meal over rice. I keep my freezer full of Zippers, Sadandy, Pink Eyes, Dixie Lee and Crowder. Also true butter beans and butter peas. I don’t grow them. I purchase from my farmer neighbor. I last put up 7 bushels. I’m so glad y’all like peas. All are so healthy, especially served with a corn product – Like cornbread or fresh corn.
I will always remember picking purple hull peas, and selling them for $2.00 per bushel. That was back in the 60 s. I did not mind picking purple hull peas, but did not like picking butter beans as it took much longer to fill up the bushel basket!
Some people like macaroni and cheese. Some like broccoli and cheese. I do too but I also like peas and cheese. Just a can of English peas, well drained, with some cheese melted into it. I can make a meal out of it. I’ll eat the whole can. If I buy the store brand of peas and cheese I can eat for less than a dollar.
One of my dad’s favorite memory meals was a big bowl of small white beans, sometimes with cut up okra, always with cut up onion and tomato pieces and cornbread. It took me growing into an adult before I grew to enjoy this combo. Your bowl looks delicious.
Ms. Tipper and anyone who wants to respond. My Aunt and Momma have gardened my entire life. They are both gone now. However they planted what they called a “cow pea” only one time in my life and I was an adult. I don’t know what they planted. The plant had the most beautiful white, purple and black flowers bigger than a hand growing on them. Can y’all tell me the specific variety. When she served some she had canned I actually thought they were beans. Anyway, any help y’all can give would be great! Reading this brought that memory back and I sure would love to try my hand at growing! God bless!
Cow peas are the same variety as black-eyed peas. They are not really peas at all but are a type of bean.
My mom made lima beans in with crumbled italian sausage, once in a great while. We weren’t crazy about the lima bean part, but the sausage made ’em edible. We NEVER had peas of any kind, that I can remember. And we didn’t eat much with beans, either, just baked beans in the summer. Now, I’m crazy about beans & shell peas. I’ve already shelled 8 qt.s of peas for the freezer & given/sold a bunch, too. Only one daughter likes the sweet peas (I steam them. Delicious). I grow a Missouri Heirloom bean, called a Lina Sisco bean, that is beautiful, big, speckled & tasty. I grow a soup bean that I don’t remember where I got the seed from. This year I tried Pintos that are coming along & black eyed peas, but those don’t look too plentiful. A favorite dish of mine & one daughters is black eyed peas & ham hocks from the hogs we raise. I am hoping I get enough black eyed peas to just save for next year’s seed. I tried the corn & tomato recipe & loved it. Having it for leftovers tonight. We eat a lot different up here in NY. Not a ton of bean or pea eating, and I don’t know of anyone in my circle that grows dry beans??? Don’t know why.
Been planting butter beans all my life, I love them. This year and last year mine didn’t do well. Don’t know what the problem is, have a lot of blossoms but few pods.
I have never eaten this combination even though I was raised on country cooking in the mountains of East Tennessee. Could you please tell me exactly what variety of beans and peas these are so I can try growing them in my garden next year. Also, would you please share exactly how to cook them?
You might have already done a video in this, but I would be very interested in having a list of the things you grow in your garden that have turned out to be your favorites.
Thank you so much for sharing your life and family. It is a wonderful thing to know that there are people like you continuing on with our Appalachian traditions and raising your precious girls to know about these things as well. You are a breath of fresh air that never fails to uplift me and give me hope and a smile.
I’m so glad you enjoy what we do 🙂 The name of the peas are Mississippi Pink Eye Peas. The Lima Beans name is Henderson. I pressured them with water to cover and a piece of bacon for 25 minutes. I hope you enjoy them!
My mother worked for a while selling Amana freezers and ended up getting one for our home. She would go to the farmer’s market and bring home bushels of lima beans and crowder peas for the children to shell out in the evening after school. I hated shelling out crowder peas because they would leave me with raw fingers, but enjoyed the bounty from our freezer over the winter. Speckled butter beans are my favorite, but they are hard to find these days.
I meant to say go to the farmer’s market with my Daddy!
The most important thing I’ve learned in gardening was that cooking the product is key to success in taste. I never say I don’t care for something until I’ve learned how to cook it – which has been so very different from cooking things from the store. I have so much to learn in my old age! AND now I have learned a new way to cook peas, once I get an insta-pot.
We always had butter beans and peas in the summer. We lived in the city – no garden -but I would go to the farmer’s market with him to buy them. Sometimes my Mother would mix fresh corn in with the peas and butter beans. Of course, she would make cornbread to eat with this. We would visit our family in the Sandhills of NC and they grew colored butter beans. My favorite were still the green ones. Great memories! Take care of and God bless❣️
Great when a “recipe” just comes together kinda accidental but built on sound knowledge also. You can name it yourself for the finishing touch. I should not be surprised if you don’t invent several variations to.
Still a mystery to be why field peas were not commonly grown in southwest KY where I grew up. They would seem to me to be a very good match with the soils of that country.
My Mother cooked English Peas that I loved. This was the first year I actually tried growing English Peas and what a wonder they were! I was thrilled with how many I picked off one little bush. I cooked them with my fresh green beans and oh my what a fantastic meal I enjoyed. When my parents retired and moved back down south, my Mother was able to get Purple Hull Peas and our whole family LOVES them. They are large almost like a butter bean, light tan background with Purple specks.
I like most anything including peas and butter beans. My wife says peas taste like chalk to her. When I asked her when and why she tasted chalk she said they were like what she thought chalk would taste like.
It’s funny, the foodways you “inherit” from your forebears. My grandpa Mosier would always keep a bowl of raw turnip slices in cold water in the fridge to snack on during the day and I do the same thing. My aunt Janette (his daughter) would have a bowl of butter beans (cooked to the gravy stage) on the table for dinner and supper every single night. Every time I cook butter beans I remember her fondly.
Butter beans and peas of all sorts were a staple growing up in south Georgia. We’d have both green and speckled butter beans, sometimes butter peas, and so many different kinds of peas – crowders, black-eyed peas, pink eye purple hulls, lady peas, tiny little “lady” peas, cream 80’s, cream 40’s…. Everybody grew them in their gardens or sold them at farm stands. We’d cook the peas mixed with butter beans sometimes like you show in your photo.
When we moved to north Georgia (Buford) I couldn’t find peas or butter beans anywhere! Still can’t. I go home to south Georgia every year to get enough to put in the freezer to last for the winter. I still don’t understand why they’re not grown in this area.
I grew up eating snow peas that mom cooked the same way she did green beans. She planted them on Valentine’s Day at the same time she planted lettuce. For several years I have planted my peas in some soft dirt behind a shed that doesn’t require me to drag the tiller out in February. My garden salads wouldn’t be the same without a hand full of peas that can always be found in my freezer. I love peas any way I can get them.
I love me some fresh crowder peas. Never thought about mixing them with the butter beans. Last evening I cooked a 3 lb. Roast in my Instant Pot and then after it finished I threw in the small new potatoes, carrots and celery and set them for 10 minutes. I have to tell you I was a little intimidated by that IP and didn’t use it the first 6 months I had it. But once I started using it I don’t know why I waited. I’ve done soup beans in it in a third the time I could do them on the stove. I’m so crazy about mine I now have all three sizes. There’s all kinds of Facebook groups devoted to IP as well as YouTube videos on how to get the most out of your IP. I’ve seen yours sitting on the counter but never saw you use it in any of your cooking. I think this could open up a whole new series for your YouTube channel. Get cracken with your IP
I actually cook mine in my slow cooker one day then the next day cook them again. They melt in your mouth! I always make enough to freeze serving sizes too do when I am runnung behind I csn judt grab s bag and reheat.
I love peas! Peas actually kept my daddy’s family alive during the great depression ! Grandma made pea patties, pea sausage, pea soup, pea salad and just plain peas. My grandpa’s favorite meal was a pot of peas and a pone of cornbread. You would think after eating so many peas earlier in life that he would hate them but I think he appreciated them so much because they kept them alive ❤
I grew up in a home where there was never peas. My mom did not like peas, and after watching my grandmother once harvest peas. I suspect Mom may have gotten foundered. I love them still today. and blame it on never enjoying as a child. When I lived in the far south they called the green limas butter beans and the others lima beans. That photo sure looks tasty.
Enjoying your videos along with those of your girls. I still say as I always have, one day you will gain some fame for your dedication to the celebration of Appalachian life. That award was just the beginning.
I don’t recall ever eating a type of bean or pea that I didn’t like.
My husband loves butter beans, peas, Lima beans, in fact any kind of bean! I love them as well! I’m going to try out your method the next time I fix some for us.
I love Sugar Peas and Butter Beans too. My hubby sadly does not. I planted Sugar Peas this year for the first time and just like y’all I ate most of them as a snack straight from the vine. I did give my mother-in-law a bag full. She had never had them, but after tasting them raw in her salad she loved them. My mom use to fix Butter Beans when I was young and I’d eat them up. I have always called them Butter Beans and never knew they were also called Lima Beans until I moved to NC. I always thought they were two different types of beans until I bought a can of Lima Beans in the store to try and realized it was the same bean…lol
I have never cared much for black eyed peas. Mom would always insist I eat 3 of them every New Year’s to have “good luck”. We grew up on butter beans (cooked in milk and sugar), regular old peas, sugar snaps, mountain half runner beans. Now the ‘experts’ tell us that’s health food. My granny and great grands knew it all along. LOL
I love all the peas you have in that bowl, so good and creamy just the taste of summer. I hate seeing your garden waning I enjoy the weekend harvests and hearing the bees. The pulling out is kinda sad but the fall planting will be good to see coming along. You have a lot put up for the winter and that’s the goal. Have a good week!
Always need a chunk of bacon or fatback with peas or beans of any kind!
Love butter beans, and sometime, lima beans, but have never put them together. Gotta try that. My MIL used to make the large lima beans and would make a white cake with Chocolate icing. When I saw both of those on the table at the same time I wondered why as she usually didn’t serve the cake til the plates were cleared from the table. Then the most amazing site, she put a slice of the cake, remember chocolate icing, and a scope of lima beans on top. After looking at my hubby questioning her sanity, he just gave me a smile and did the same thing. Wellll….I must say the broth of the beans and that icing was, looking for a word, different?…but WOW…can’t find one. I love to watch you and the Deer Hunter enjoying your treats as you rock and chat about whatever comes to mind. God bless
That’s the way I cook all my beans. I sauté the bacon then put a can of chicken broth and pressure for 20 mins. They are so good and tender. I like I can put them on and not have to worry about the water boiling over or out. All the ones you mentioned we like and eat often. Have a blessed week.
I love peas too. I also like most beans except the large green or white Lima bean, but I do like the colored butterbean like the Jackson Wonders. My favorite crowder pea is the Mississippi purple hull cooked with a piece of fatback in the pot along with some good unsweetened cornbread. If the green peas you mention are the English pea or sweet pea, I love them too., but I like the grocery store can ones better than the fresh ones. Tipper, in the picture above, it looks to me like Like they butter peas or at least that is the name I know them by.
I go to the doctor today, lately I have been having some health problems one of them being with my one of my eyes. I hope it is nothing serious. They were good and healthy in Feb. when I had an exam.
Try adding chicken broth instead of water when you cook your peas. We love it,
I’ve eaten lima beans but didn’t much care for them, but I don’t think I’ve ever eaten the peas/beans you are talking about. I’m going to have to find some to try cooking for myself! The picture you have looks very enticing!