Soup beans — dried pinto beans simmered for hours with a piece of salt pork, fatback, or a ham hock, seasoned with little more than onion, salt, and pepper, and served over cornbread with raw onion on the side — is the daily food of Appalachia. Not the Saturday food, not the celebration food — the Monday-through-Friday food that sustained mountain families through the Depression, through the coal camp era, and through every lean period in the region's history. Pinto beans were the cheapest available protein; cornbread was the cheapest available starch; together, they provided nutritional completeness. The dish is so central to Appalachian identity that Ronni Lundy calls it "the foundation of mountain cooking" in *Victuals*. It is the Appalachian equivalent of Louisiana's red beans and rice (LA1-06) — the daily bean pot that defines a food culture.
Dried pinto beans soaked overnight, then simmered in water with a chunk of salt pork or a smoked ham hock for 2-4 hours until the beans are completely tender and the cooking liquid has thickened into a rich, starchy broth. The beans should be soft enough to mash with the back of a spoon but should mostly hold their shape. The broth — the "soup" in soup beans — should be thick, bean-flavoured, slightly smoky from the pork, and substantial enough to soak into cornbread without disappearing. The dish is served in a bowl with the beans and their broth, a wedge or chunk of cornbread on the side (or crumbled into the bowl), and a thick slice of raw onion.
Cornbread (crumbled into the bowl or served alongside), raw onion, chow-chow, fried potatoes. Hot sauce if available. Buttermilk to drink. This is subsistence food that became comfort food that became identity food — the same arc as red beans and rice, as feijoada, as every bean-and-grain dish in the diaspora.
1) Pinto beans — the Appalachian bean. Not navy, not kidney, not great northern. Pinto beans' specific creamy texture and earthy flavour define the dish. 2) Soak overnight. Drain and rinse. Cook in fresh water — the soaking water contains the compounds that cause digestive discomfort. 3) The pork goes in from the start — simmering with the beans for the entire cook. The collagen dissolves into the broth, the fat renders, and the smoke (if using ham hock) permeates. 4) Low and slow — a gentle simmer, not a boil. Boiling breaks the beans apart and produces a murky, pasty broth. The surface should barely move. 5) Do not add salt until the beans are tender — same principle as red beans (LA1-06) and black-eyed peas (AM1-04). Salt toughens skins during cooking.
The raw onion on the side is not optional. A thick slice of raw white or yellow onion, eaten between bites of beans and cornbread, provides a sharp, sulphurous counterpoint to the creamy, smoky beans. It sounds austere. It is one of the most satisfying meals in American cooking. Chow-chow (AM2-12) on the side — the sweet-sour relish cuts the richness and adds crunch. Soup beans improve overnight — same principle as every long-cooked bean dish. Make them on Saturday, eat them through the week. Fried potatoes alongside — pan-fried in bacon drippings or lard until crispy. The trifecta of soup beans, cornbread, and fried potatoes is the Appalachian dinner plate, and it costs almost nothing.
Rushing with high heat — the beans cook unevenly and the skins split. Not enough water — the beans should be covered by 2 inches of water at all times. They absorb a surprising amount during the long cook. Omitting the pork — without it, the broth lacks body and flavour.
Ronni Lundy — Victuals; Mark Sohn — Appalachian Home Cooking; Sidney Saylor Farr — More Than Moonshine