Greetings Tanis...
Wow, did you ever give me an opportunity to tell a story!

First, everyone has to take a deep breath and go back in time a bit to when we were all younger. The story starts on the front porch of my Granny Church, and we were all sittin on her front porch in Hinton, West Virginia. I was 'bout 7 or 8 and my cousins Vernon and Rita were with me also. Granny had slipped on down to the garden and picked a mess of "snaps" as she always called them. In fact, what she picked was nearly a bushel of them. Granny had on her usual apron, and also her straw hat that had those plastic flowers on the side, I remember it was so so hot, sticky... Granny didn't have air conditioning, just fans, so the front porch was the "choice" place to be. She had a glider, and a porch swing. I always claimed the porch swing, because it had cushions on it.
Granny brought the basket of snaps up and told us "Younguns", we gotta get these things snapped and put up by night. We'd all sit there in our special places, and we'd have towels in our laps that we would put the leftovers of the beans in. We were instructed by Granny Church to break off the stem end, and the "little tail" parts, and then into the bowl, we "snapped" the beans three times. Snap snap snap....

Now..this might seem like "slave" labor to a lot of people. Useing young children to do the handy work of preserving foods. But... not at all. Sitting on Granny's front porch was something near a privlege. When you sat on Gran's
front porch snappin' beans, you also were witness to all of Hinton Society! Everyone who was anyone drove down Summers St. and always a horn blew, and the hand was waveing at us out the car window. Granny was a mainstay in Hinton, everyone knew her and knew us. Those snapping of the beans just was a part of life, and we just accepted it as that.

After we finished up the work on those beans, Granny "C", as we called her, would go into her kitchen and pull out the old "likker" pot. It was just a big pot that she used for her greens. I think it was called "Likker", simply because thats what the liquid from the greens she cooked in it was always called.

She'd put a layer of beans in, a sprinkle of salt, and a few small strips of fatback, then she'd do another layer of beans, salt, fatback, and then she started to add sugar to it all. Usually four layers were total for the cookin of the beans. She'd then pour cold water over the entire pot and put 'em on the stove and turn the stove on. Soon we'd here the burp burp of the lid of the pot bouncing. The beans would turn a bright brilliant green. On and on they cooked. I do belive that granny let 'em cook two or so hours.

When the pot was opened and the beans served, they would melt in your mouth. The wonderful smokey flavor of the saltpork and that sweet taste of the sugar just turned those beans into little bites of love and hugs.

You see Tanis, sometimes the flavor of food is as much in the memories behind it than could EVER be tasted in the recipe! :-) This I share with you my friend, and to all on TKL. I do believe it's what Southern Cookin's all about! Just good food and the memories behind it all.

Peace To All,
David In Virginia