Leather Britches

Leather britches — green beans dried whole on a string, hung from the ceiling or porch rafters, and stored for winter cooking — are the Appalachian preservation technique that most directly connects the mountain kitchen to the pre-refrigeration world. The name comes from the texture: the dried beans resemble tiny leather leggings. The technique is simple (string the beans on a thread using a needle, hang them in a warm, dry, well-ventilated place for 2-3 weeks until they're dry, brittle, and shrunken to a fraction of their fresh size) but the result — when the dried beans are rehydrated and slow-cooked with smoked pork for hours — is a deeply concentrated, smoky, intensely green-bean-flavoured dish that fresh green beans can't match. The drying concentrates the flavour the way sun-drying concentrates a tomato.

Green beans (preferably mature, full-sized beans — not the slender haricots verts of French cooking but the substantial, slightly tough green beans of a garden in full production) strung on a heavy thread by piercing each bean with a darning needle, hung in long garlands from ceiling hooks, porch rafters, or drying racks until completely dry (2-3 weeks in warm, dry air). The dried beans are pale, shrunken, and brittle. To cook: soak in water overnight, then simmer with a smoked ham hock or salt pork for 2-3 hours until tender. The rehydrated beans have a concentrated, almost mushroom-like depth of flavour and a pleasantly chewy texture.

Alongside soup beans, cornbread, and fried potatoes — the full Appalachian plate. The leather britches provide the vegetable component, and their smoky, concentrated flavour from the pork-braised rehydration complements the bean pot.