My adventures in Leather Britches (and it’s not kinky. Sorry.)

I think, especially in honor of Dolly Parton and her love of the food of the mountains, it’s fitting to reflect on my attempt to make a traditional dish of the Smokies and Appalachia. Leather Britches is the name of an old, a very old, preparation of beans. It dates back before refrigeration, pickling, or other forms of preservation. It’s possible it even dates back to a Cherokee method that was adopted by settlers to the region. It involves taking fresh beans—various kinds of fresh pole beans—and literally stringing them up with a needle and thread. These stringed string beans are then hung up in a protected spot with good airflow: a porch or barn rafter works very well. Then, you just leave them there to dry out. Once perfectly dried, they are shriveled and brownish and look like actual leather britches. They are preserved in the simplest way, with no need of salt or smoke. No fancy technology. Anyone could do this.

The process can be time-consuming but is certainly meditative. One must pull out the string part of each bean before hanging them to dry. So, de-stringing comes before stringing. I spent hours doing this, trying to be as meticulous and thorough as possible. I used three different varieties—a quantity of a basic green bean, a purple pole runner, and a turkey craw. Once slow-simmered, beans dried in this long, hanging method (as opposed to dried in a dehydrator) are said to produce a yummy, umami-flavored, soft side dish. I wanted to see if my beans had this beloved characteristic.

I have tried only one batch so far—the plain green beans. I slow simmered them for over two hours, added a little bit of fat, and found them to taste just like any other green bean. Boo. I will try again with the other varieties.

I totally failed on the de-stringing front. I and Doug both had a first serving with no missed strings. Doug’s second serving gave him a mouthful of nasty, dried, strings. I felt so bad. I only encountered one missed string in the batch, but it made me gag. Like having a great bite of food and then having a bit of twine stuck in your throat. Argh!

When I try the next batch, I will go through and break up the dried beans to see if I can catch any stragglers before they hit our plates. As some of you know, I teach a class on American Social History through Cookbooks and I adore historical recipes. I’m glad I gave this a try, but after my last two batches are cooked, I’ll probably just stick to fresh or frozen.