Are butter beans (a name I've not heard before) the same as lima beans?

When I was growing up in the south a butterbean was the immature green version of a Lima bean. Mature they are a flat beige bean that would require soaking so I assume yes a Butter bean is a Lima bean. Shelling butter beans was a daily chore when they were producing.

Lima beans are green so perhaps it's the same thing. I've only ever had fresh or frozen, not dry. Does shelling mean removing from a pod or peeling each bean in some way?

They grow on a short bush and are produced in flat pods. If you pick the pods when they are full you shell out soft flat pale green beans-usually three or four to a pod. It is rather like shelling green peas only harder to do. If you wait until they are fully grown and dried they are hard like any dried bean and are beige. That sort is usually threshed out by pulling the whole plant and wacking the plant against a hard surface like the inside of a bucket. My grandmother never let them mature except for seed. her family grew a lot of butter beans. You could buy dry Limas in bags at the store. It was my lot in life to have to watch the wretched things to keep them from burning. No one ate them. I have no idea why my mother insisted on cooking them. Maybe if we had spiced them in some way. Occasionally we had them with chopped up hotdogs and they went over better. There are a couple of sorts-there is a smaller variety that looks like a flattened pea. More Atlantic coastal. Same bean different variety.

After onion, sausage, chicken, chicken broth, plenty of Chachere's and low, slow cooking they are done and delicious. Made enough so there are an additional 4 portions to freeze. Fixing to make the cornbread.

patriciae -

What I'm thinking of looks like edamame outside the pod, not as oily.

"They grow on a short bush"

I come from a family with no tradition of vegetable gardening, other than an occasional tomato plant or some corn, so I wouldn't recognize it. Besides on a plate in a restaurant, the only other place I've found them is in the frozen vegetable sections of grocery stores.

Maybe in bags in the dry bean section too, but they didn't look like something I wanted to deal with.

I would have had no vegetable or any other sort of garden experience if not for my Grannie. She was my mothers step-mother. The grands lived on a farm and we as town kids spent our summers and holidays there. I loved it. Her family were big gardeners with a family home farm they all used as well. Beans can be bushy or vines of varying heights. We cant grow the same sorts here of course. Too long a season. I do believe Butter beans are actually indigenous beans-south America?

When growing up, a staple in our kitchen was navy beans cooked with a cut of cured ham. Other hard beans will work as well. Other cuts of meat will work, but my favorite flavor was ham cured with Morton's sugar cure.

patriciae, all beans except garbanzos, favas, and lentils are originally from North and South America. Also from the "New World" are tomatoes, potatoes, peppers (not the spice pepper), and corn (maize).

Thanks for those offering clarification.

Beans as a main or side dish weren't a frequent menu item in my childhood home nor has it been in my adult life. Unless you count occasionally sprinkling garbanzos in a salad, frijoles refritos (Mexican style mashed refried beans) or baked beans with BBQ meals.

Of course Laceyvail. I know Phaseolus are American and of course Europe has a long history of various Peas. Quite a boon to the world to spread American beans. Thanks for the extra info.

Outside, I had totally forgotten the speckled butter bean! They are much easier to shell. My Grannie mixed them with Purple Hull peas.

Limas and butter beans are both "broad" beans. I buy the canned ones from Goya and they are my very favorites.

Too bad that the owner of Goya had to go and shoot himself in the foot with his awful political declarations.

Butter beans and cornbread are wonderful as long as you actually have a really good cornbread. That means not a sweet cornbread. Real old fashioned southern cornbread does not have sugar in it.

I come from a long, long line of cornbread eaters and it is my very favorite food in all the world! For husband, it is pasta. He is Italian American and that is the way he rolls. I'll take a nice hot piece of cornbread anyday over a piece of chocolate cake, even. I use butter beans in place of the small white beans that his mom used.

"Butter beans and cornbread are wonderful"

It sounds like a starchy combo to eat together?

Elmer, sure it is but it’s not like I eat it every day. For me it’s maybe a once per summer kind of thing. Much like a dessert I eat on occasion as a special treat. I don’t usually eat large meals anyway so a small serving of this or anything else is enough to satisfy a craving. And as you know many beans can be an alternate source of protein.

Comfort food!

Beans and grains combine to complement each others missing amino acids for a complete protein.

Beans and cornbread are a staple of southern cuisine. There is nothing wrong with eating beans and cornbread. Most of the world lives on rice and beans which is just another version of grains and beans.

The amino acids from a grain and the amino acids from a bean or a pea are the basis for the new plant derived fake meat that has become popular. Of the two dominant ones on the market, one uses the protein from a pea and the other the protein from a bean.

Elmer, don't be so quick to condemn it. There are many traditional foods that will combine different forms of starch. Think of perogies stuffed with potatoes, or tortillas stuffed with beans, or breaded eggplant on a sandwich.

I guess you are unfamiliar with beans and cornbread.

I grew up on cornbread and beans and it is still one of my favorite go to meals.

We sauté cannellini beans with garlic, olive oil, lemon juice and spinach all the time. Sometimes we substitute arugula and/or garbanzo beans. It's a yummy fresh take on beans.

I love Lima beans, which is what I've mainly called them, but I have heard other people call them butter beans. I grew up in central Texas, which is marginally part of the South. A lot of people where I grew up had southern accents and used southern terms for food items and other things.

I also make Texas cornbread, which has no flour and no sugar, and it is what I'm used to and is my favorite. This is the recipe I've always used, and it is how my mother made cornbread. My mother always used bacon drippings, but I do not always do this, although I prefer it this way.

I make a spicy bean dip with pinto beans or red beans (depending on what I have on hand - I use red beans when I'm out of pinto beans), and I use it much like a condiment. It goes on tortas, burritos, tacos, enchiladas, taco salads, tostados, etc. but sometimes I just add cheese, heat it up, and use it as a dip for tortilla chips.

The second most common dish I make with beans is hummus, and unlike my bean dip, I make this without cumin. While I love cumin in my pinto bean dip, I strongly dislike it in hummus. I learned from Ina Garten to use hummus on a flour tortilla with tuna salad plus lettuce to make a tuna wrap that I especially like.

Next would be minestrone soup or Cuban black bean soup. I use Sol's recipe for the Cuban soup, but I forget where I got the minestrone recipe, but I tend to make it the same way each time.

I agree that cornbread is the best thing to serve with Lima beans or butter beans.

Cornbread was the very first thing we were taught to make by my grandmother. When you were around four you stood on a piano stool and stirred, gradually graduating to measuring ingredients as you got older. Our Mississippi cornbread did include flour but not a lot and no eggs, or sugar of course. It was denser than I make now. By the time I was in college she had learned to put in a big dollop of mayonnaise of all things which supplied the eggs. My Grannie was never above learning a new trick. Bacon grease went into the hot skillet to make a crunchy outside. After cornbread you graduated to biscuit. She made both at least twice a day and leftovers went to the pig bucket.

Bacon grease went into the hot skillet to make a crunchy outside.

Definitely a hot cast iron skillet and a crunchy outside. This time I had no bacon in the house, but bacon drippings make it tastier.

Mmm - I miss butter beans. Can't find them around here, but I remember buying them at roadside stands in GA.

I use extra virgin olive oil in the skillet, instead of bacon grease, since I don't buy or eat bacon. Works great and makes a perfectly crunchy crust. I like to make cornbread muffins the same way - more crunchy crust that way.

And now I have this playing in my head:

"Elmer, don't be so quick to condemn it."

You've perhaps read more into it than what I said. I said the combination sounded a bit starch-heavy. The very next comment following mine was from a Southerner who agreed with me. What did I say that you think condemns the combo? "A starchy combo" means what it means.

I understand the nutritional combination of legumes and grains. You were raised in an area or a family with a tradition of eating beans and cornbread, that's fine. I wasn't, no judgement results from the difference. The combo doesn't appeal to me but that's fine.

A lot of us were raised on a lot of unhealthy foods and food practices and many have decided in later years with more information available about the affects of certain foods on health to make better choices. Beans and cornbread, while perhaps a bit too starchy, could be quite healthy eaten occasionally with the omission of bacon fat. Do as you wish, nothing more personal than food choices. Don't assume your views are necessarily shared by others, I don't.

1929, the way you are making your cannellini beans is the most perfect way to have those beans! So many recipes like that now days would have you adding canned chicken broth to the pot. I like your version much better. You just have honest flavors going on there. I would be all smiles and happiness sharing dinner with you.

Lars, we are out of Texas, too. No sweet in that cornbread!!!! An absolute travesty! For sure. I do use 1 part flout to 3 parts cornmeal, but have had it both ways and it is all good. I also use buttermilk instead of sweet milk.

I keep cornbread around much of the time. I find that it heats up nicely when sliced and put into a hot skillet to warm.

I had some yesterday for lunch, with butter beans. We had some more of that same skillet of cornbread later that evening with our stuffed collard greens.

Cornbread and beans is a regular staple in my house.

Husband is of Italian origin and I have to dissuade him from putting something sweet on his cornbread. I have just about broken him of that after 50 plus years.

I have been in restaurants where they serve cornbread and it is so darned sweet that not only is it wrong, but it is so sweet that is it inedible with the meal that it is being served with. What good to have gumbo with sweet bread? NO, that is not right!

Cornbread and butter beans, best thing on the table!

Lucille, glad you enjoyed the Carolina Chocolate Drops. They are wonderfully talented and very academic musicians.

The jug played like that is an old folk instrument.

Ms Giddens is a powerful vocalist and very talented with an instrument, too. She brings so many elements to her performance and she mixes so many American heritages that are abundant throughout the areas around Virginia and the Carolinas. Virginia was one of the very first parts of our country where there was a merging of many different cultures, way back when. She draws on a lot of musical heritage.

I think that she has gone on to record on her own.

"They are wonderfully talented and very academic musicians"

What's an academic musician? It's a new term I haven't heard, other than perhaps (literally) to describe a professor at a university.

Cajun butter beans and bean music

Bean music? Is that a reference to the possible after-effects of beans? :)

Both to the wonderful tunes provided here by the members, and to the bean tunes as well.

I have been in restaurants where they serve cornbread and it is so darned sweet that not only is it wrong,

No sweet in that cornbread!!!! An absolute travesty!

Husband is of Italian origin and I have to dissuade him from putting something sweet on his cornbread. I have just about broken him of that after 50 plus years.

I think it is interesting when people's food preferences rise to the level where descriptive terms like 'wrong' are used. I see similar strong preferences in for instance the use of ketchup on certain foods, whether steaks should be cooked rare or well done, whether beans belong in chili, etc.

It reminds me of the Greek concept of arete, a concept of excellence that posits that there is an ultimate perfection that one strives for.

I'm not sure whether the ultimate concept of perfect cornbread precludes sweetness, I've always been more inclined to think that we are all different and what is delicious for one person is in fact what they enjoy and it isn't wrong even if it includes sugar or ketchup. Unless actually harmful (we're not necessarily talking foods here) deep seated preferences should not need to be trained out of people.

Whew! Who knew cornbread and beans could intersect so interestingly with philosophy and music!

Gently wandering in here... :)

I'm a northeasterner by birth and have spent most of my entire life in New York. I know nothing of these butter beans you speak of. LOL.

So, we're talking about lima beans and corn bread? As a main meal?

I'm curious - do you put the beans actually on the cornbread, or are they eaten separately?

I also had no idea cornbread could be - or according to some, should be - not sweet! I absolutely love cornbread, but the kind my grandmother always made was sweet. Grandmother was in the first line of Americans born from an Irish family, so probably not in touch with any southern roots. :) Cornbread with a little bit of butter is breakfast food in my family.

I love threads like this, where I learn something. I mean no offense by any of my questions either. I've never heard of any of this so I'm just trying to understand....

Lucille, thank you for sticking up for sweet cornbread lovers. Ha ha. I had no idea my love for (sweet) cornbread was so illicit. :)

I do not care for green lima beans. I do like the dried and we always called those butter beans, fixed with a smoky meat of some kind, bacon or ham or whatever, onion and salt and pepper. Cornbread with it and I do like mine a touch sweet. I read somewhere, sometime, the reason they started putting sugar in the corn bread is because the corn they used in the past was sweeter and made a bit of a sweeter cornbread so the touch of sugar made up for that. I like my cornbread with butter and when not with beans like it in a bowl with milk, some like butter milk I like buttermilk but have not tried it on the cornbread. I like cornbread with the cooked dried beans I do fix from time to time, mostly either Great Northern or Cranberry beans. Have some Pinto beans too.

Sue

"I think it is interesting when people's food preferences rise to the level where descriptive terms like 'wrong' are used."

I think a high percentage of people have either rather dull/undiscerning taste buds or are indifferent to having food and flavor variety and different experiences. And most eat habitually, the same thing the same way with no interest in trying something new or different. To hear "I always" or "I never" is a sure sign of someone whose food choices are simply habitual. "Wrong" means "not how I do it"

To me butter beans are the large yellow beans, not the small green beans. Canned yellow beans say" butter beans" on the label, and the canned small green ones say" lima beans" on the label. I don't know if they're the same bean or not, but I always assumed they were different varieties of beans.

patriceny, I would eat cornbread with butter beans,but not in the beans. I wouldn't put the beans on the cornbread. Others may do differently.

I always thought putting sugar in cornbread was a northern thing. I don't think most people would have put sugar in their bread in days past when sugar was hard to get. I think it has just become a tradition with some people and they prefer it because it's what they always had. I don't like sugar in cornbread and I don't like it made with yellow cornmeal either.

I think it's smart to ask questions; it's another way to learn new things. I certainly take no offense when questions are ask politely.

What I can not stand is someone who answers on a thread of "what-do-you-like" never saying what they like, just bashing anyone who likes, butter beans/limas, (and yes, they are the same thing),cornbread, canned soups, fried food, hot dogs, mac and cheese, you get the idea. The idea that only what that person likes is good, or good for you. If they don't like, it it is bad. Even if they have never ate it, it is bad.

In re: 'bean music' - aren't beans the musical fruit?

I thought Lima beans were a named variety, and butterbeans a type, not a named variety? And I just found an old packet of Black Knight butterbeans, and now I want to try planting them out to see if they're still viable.

Apparently when the beans were imported from Peru where they were grown for export the cases said Lima Peru. So the story goes for the reason for Lima beans. Sounds good anyway. There being multiple varieties of Phaseolus lunatus (the latin name of this bean) means that people can and do prefer different varieties.

The corn used for corn bread in the past would definitely not be sweeter. We have bred corn to be sweeter to make sweet corn but the original corn was flint or dent. Dent is slightly sweet when still green but very starchy when mature as it is when ground for cornmeal.

We always used white corn meal when I was growing up because it was the kind you got at the store. Yellow corn was used for pigs and chickens. I dont notice any real difference but then again you really cant get fresh cornmeal anymore and then it might make a difference. I once worked at Mabry Mill on the Blue Ridge Parkway and you could get meal that was literally ground in front of you. Wow was that different to use. We could grind our own meal but it is practically impossible to get whole corn.

Interesting discussion, thanks folks.

I probably can't speak for all of the northeast (ha!), but yes cornbread up here is (always?) sweet. I LOVE cornbread - or at least what this northerner thinks of as cornbread - and I would have remembered if I'd ever eaten any that wasn't what I expected it to be. Everything I've ever had has been at least some level of "sweet" - it almost tastes like a dessert to me.

Now I'm wishing for fresh warm cornbread. It reminds me of breakfast at my grandmother's house. Happy memories of good food and good people. I'll take a piece of my sweet cornbread, and I'd love a big helping of your non-sweet cornbread too please. I'm sure I will love it.

I love mill-ground white corn meal, but it is harder to get it, even here in the south.

No sugar ever in corn bread here. I am not a fan of sweet corn bread, but understand it’s mostly a regional preference. Plus, I am not generally a sweet eater, I prefer more savory food, and good butter of course. My cornbread is actually very light, not heavy, in texture.

When I make cornbread, it's savory, but I have an old recipe for corn muffins made with molasses and they are very yummy.

Mexican cornbread--no sugar.

Then there is the cornbread that I make to have for breakfast. Cornbread crumbled in milk, eaten like cold cereal w/ a spoon. I use a bit of sugar when I make the breakfast cornbread.

I used to buy Hodgson Mills cornmeal but haven't been able to find it since Hodgson Mills sold out to some food conglomerate back east.

I have been buying Great River Milling cornmeal from Amazon. It's (stone) milled in WI, organic, whole grain (the bran & germ are not removed). I buy the yellow corn but it is available in white.

The whole grain cornmeals are so much, much better than the de-germinated grocery store stuff (Quaker, etc.) More flavor, the meal feels almost moist. I keep it stored in the freezer. Always from scratch (no cornbread mixes in my house.) One tip I read a while back was to mix the cornmeal w/ the wet ingredients & leave it to set for a while to help hydrate the meal.

To answer the question above about beans & cornbread. The cornbread was always a side dish served with butter; in my family no one crumbed the cornbread into the beans. Usually accompanied with green salad and fruit for dessert.

Elmer, they are music academics. Trained and studied at university. Music and musical heritage are the focus of their work. Give them a google if you feel you need more understanding.

Don't take it too literally. Of course I mean that it is "wrong" in a tongue in cheek manner, of course. To me, it IS the worst thing to do to a pan of real cornbread to make it sweet. . It may not be to others.

Once you have added sugar to the cornbread, you no longer have a. cornbread that goes with the meal.

How do you eat cornbread and beans? You cut open that piece of cornbread and pour a ladle full of beans over it. I grew up on cornbread and beans. It was our mainstay meal. My mom used to make deviled eggs to serve with it. That is not a regional preference, just what mom liked.

I keep cornbread around and chunk off a piece and warm it in a skillet. Then I use the still warm skillet and pour in some beans to heat up. A bit of Tabasco or hot vinegar over the top and it is a little bit of heaven that I never tire of.

Some of those mills scattered down I95 through the Carolinas make some wonderful cornmeal. It was sold in the Publix, of all places, but the last time I was in Florida at a Publix I could not find it. Good meal does make a difference. If I can't find one of the ones out of the Carolinas from the small mills, I will go for Indian Head. White and yellow are not that much different in taste but I prefer yellow. They are both good.

A good skillet of southern cornbread is a basic cooking skill.

I put southern cornbread in to two categories. One is the cornbread that came to be favored by those who inherited the traditions from the mountains and inland and the other is the low country cornbread of the coastal regions. There are a couple of variations of each of them, but the main difference is that the inland folks began to use some flour and made a higher and richer cornbread. Some ever use sugar! Those low country folks around the coastal areas made a thinner cornbread with all cornmeal, less leavening and they used buttermilk.

Sometimes I will use a bit of molasses and some whole wheat flour in a cornbread that is going to be had with a beef stew and vegetables in the winter. But that is not my go to cornbread. I understand that this is going to be something different from my "real" cornbread. Just once in a while when the weather turns colder and we begin to gravitate towards root vegetables, winter squash and the like, a small bit of rich sweetness can be welcome.

If it is BBQ or beans or gumbo or any of that nature, there is nothing like a warm and crusty piece of low country cornbread. I don't use bacon grease like my mom did. I don't buy bacon but once in a long long while.

cilantro, that cornbread broken up in a bowl of milk is something taht my mother ate but just makes my stomach churn.

Momma used to break the cornbread up into a canning jar and pour buttermilk over it and eat it with a spoon. That is a real southern thing to do and used to be quite popular. Not sweet milk, but buttermilk. It was not cultured buttermilk as we have now. This was the real deal that she liked. I don't even know where to get real buttermilk anymore.

It was always eaten from a canning jar, not a bowl. Guess that is just part of how it originated as that is what they had. We used canning jars for a lot of things.

I have an aversion to anything like that and just the thought of it is unpleasant to me. If you like milk and buttermilk it may appeal.

Me, I just love me some cornbread!! I used to take two pieces of it onto my plate and put butter on one and beans on the other. We ate more pinto beans than butter beans.

"Elmer, they are music academics. Trained and studied at university."

Okay, what threw me off is I think you've misused the term "music academics"

An academic is a teacher or student in a college or university. These people are apparently not that so it's not the right term.

If someone has a degree in music and is no longer at an academic institution, they are a "music graduate" or some form of that. Or "academically trained". Not a "music academic".

Not a big deal but that's why I didn't understand what you were saying.

My momma, too, Dallasannie. But in a bowl with sweet milk, not buttermilk. B'milk would be gross. (Mom was from the Ozarks country, southern-ish, but not southern- Southern.) I am glad that I like the combination because it gives me a gluten free 'cold cereal' alternative since I can make good gluten free cornbread. Odd thing is that Dad loved fried cornmeal mush & Mom detested it--think that might have been an acquired Depression thing. I never saw my dad eat cornbread w/ milk. I love both.

We also ate pinto beans the most, Great Northerns/ navy beans once in a while (yeah, I ate them because that was the only choice) & I had to beg for black-eyed peas. We had green lima beans--I like-- but never dried butter beans. Dad liked them though & would cook up a batch after my parents divorced. Meh, IMO. I was happy that Mom never cooked them.

Oh, and I never ate cornbread at the bean meal because I wanted it leftover for breakfast w/ milk the next day! Same thing w/ mashed potatoes because I wanted to eat them as leftover potato patties. (Add a beaten egg to L/O mash, shape into patties, press crushed cornflakes onto the patties & then fry in a bit of oil.)

On the subject of Southern foods--I was well into my 30's before I tasted crowder peas. My neighbor who was from Tennessee, turned me onto them. She grew them in her garden & canned them. First taste & I was in love. I didn't grow them but was able to buy them already canned. After we moved to Wisconsin, no more crowders. Not sold in the grocery stores here. Someone mentioned turnip greens on another thread within the last couple of weeks or so. That made me hungry for turnip greens. I found some at Wal-Mart but the only brand was those Gloria 'seasoned' ones. I tried those once & thought the 'seasoning' was nasty tasting so had to pass.

Real buttermilk is the liquid left after you make butter. It is in essence skimmed milk with flecks of butter floating about. It is not cultured in any way so is not thick. I don't think you could ever get it in the store.

We had both kinds of b'milk when I was a kid. Store-bought cultured & the leftovers from making butter. Both nasty to drink, IMO. But good for baking.

Dad used to say,

"Beans, beans, the musical fruit:

The more you eat - the more you toot!"

I think that it was navy beans, which are white when ripe, that he was referring to.

ole joyful

The more you eat the better you feel

So lets have beans for every meal.

Thanks, Marilyn,

That sounds familiar and I think it was part of my original experience.

ole joyful