Soup beans

Soup beans is a term common in the Southern United States, particularly the regions around the Appalachian Mountains. It refers to pinto or other brown dried beans cooked with smoked pork as flavoring.¹ Soup beans are usually served with cornbread, greens (such as boiled cabbage, cauliflower, or fried saurkraut and weenies), corn (whole or sweet), and potatoes (stewed or fried) and may be topped with raw chopped onions. Soup beans are considered a main course, but also serve as a side dish. In rural areas, where food was scarce during the winter, these dried beans were a staple food.

Soup Beans may also include Great Northern beans, combination of brown and white beans. Some are consisted entirely of Navy beans, black-eyed peas, or even butter beans.

The cornbread is the most important side dish in a soup bean meal. It is usually either baked or fried into patties called hoecakes. Often the cornbread will be crumbled into the beans, in the same way that you might add crackers to chili.

Soup beans were such a staple during the winter that general stores, when they began carrying dried beans, carried 50 lb. bags alongside the typical 1, 2, & 5 lb. bags. Soup beans are often re-cooked as fried bean cakes, or made into mountain chili the next day. In the winter months, a pot of beans simmered on the stove of every house every day.¹

Pinto beans, along with corn meal, represent an unusual connection between mountain and southwestern and Mexican cuisine.

----1 ^ Sohn, Mark F. "Appalachian Home Cooking History, Culture, & Recipes" Lexington: University Press of Kentucky. 2005.