Rant: Butter beans are not lima beans!

Epicurean Exploits - Food and Recipes
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Over the weekend I cooked up some beautiful, tender green butter beans and took them to a pot luck dinner. One of the guests, a transplanted Midwesterner, said she had never been able to develop a taste for lima beans. I told her butter beans are different. She insisted they are the same. SOS.

Okay, okay, before anyone points it out, taxonomically speaking lima beans and butter beans are the same genus and species: Phaseolus lunatus. Everything else about them is different.

Modern lima bean and butter bean cultivars all developed from two distinct wild types. The large-seeded variety (Lima type) was domesticated circa 2000 B.C. in the Andes of Peru; it got the name “Lima” because the beans were first shipped to Europe from Lima, Peru. The small-seeded variety (Sieva type) was domesticated circa 800 A.D. in Mesoamerica. Both types come in many cultivars with varying plant habits (bush vs. climbing), seed colors (white, cream, yellow, green, brown, purple), seed shapes (flat vs. oblate), and seed patterns (solid vs. variegated or “speckled”).

In the South, the small-seeded Sieva type is almost universally called a butter bean, sometimes a Dixie (green) or Henderson (speckled) butter bean after the two most widely grown cultivars. Sometimes it is called a baby lima, though it is not an immature Lima type.

Here’s the important part: In culinary use, the Sieva type (butter beans) and Lima type (lima beans) are distinctly different. Butter beans are milder in flavor and considerably lower in starch than the larger, starchy, more earthy flavored limas. Butter beans are delicious, lima beans not so much to many people.

At my insistence, she tried the butter beans. Without third-party encouragement, she had a second helping.

Another convert.

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So in other words, lima and butter beans are different varietals!

newhere

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Touché.


[cheers.gif]

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No love for limas (sensu lato)? I like 'em all. Even the big Fordhooks, cooked in butter and evoo with garlic and black pepper.

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Don’t forget the bacon…

[thumbs-up.gif]

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I like 'em all, too, David. In fact, I’ve never encountered a legume I didn’t like - though some more than others.

But I continue to encounter people who have never tried butter beans 'cause they dislike limas, thinking they are the same thing. What a shame…

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Ok big toe - next time i’m down - convert me. I cannot stand lima beans. I grew up on some Bird’s Eye crap called Succotash - corn, lima’s, red peppers and onions. I hated it then. I hate it now.

You have one shot to convince me butter/lima/fava are worth my time.

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Chris- If you ever make it here in the summer, I will make it a mission to convince you that succotash is a beautiful thing. My Fiancee’s sister from Chicago was in town a few weeks ago and had the same opinion- it changed rapidly once I put a plate of it in front of her. Succotash is one of those things that you do with perfect ingredients, and then it is amazing, but failing those ingredients it can go down hill pretty fast. Also, how it is made is somewhat important. You referenced some industrial frozen shit in a bag- need I say more? Also, you can make a great one without butter beans, simply using lima beans.

Bob,

Is a baby lime bean a butter bean? We have always preferred the baby limas, but nothing is sold here as a butter bean, so i am wondering if that is the same thing. That said, fresh picked limas out of the garden are really good.

Thanks

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Ken,

Reading is fundamental. neener

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Succotash for Chris: summer succotash with bacon and croutons – smitten kitchen


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Wow, that succotash looks fabulous. And I have cherry tomatoes, corn, and basil at home (not to mention bacon). Wonder what kind of beans I can find fresh!?

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Ken - you’re on
Big Toe -thanks

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Robert, Very funny my wife and I had this conversation two nights ago. I am a refugee from lower Alabama, and our last trip there this summer allowed us to bring home a bushel each of fresh white peas and butter beans. Kept cold for the flight home, and promptly blanched and frozen on arrival home. We had our last butter beans cooked with some bacon and onion two nights ago, along with some fried okra with Pollard’s corn meal, and salted heirloom tomato slices- one of my favorite early childhood meals. The only thing that might top it is if I could have added some fried catfish from my grandfather’s pond. Kim asked me the difference btw Lima and butter beans, and I could not exactly tell her why they aren’t lima beans, aside from the answer “that they taste better”. Thank you for the info. Sadly we only have two quart bags of our white peas left.

Cheers

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I made the fancy succotash last night – ran out of shopping and cooking time and just bought frozen baby limas.

But at any rate it was really good, and it is surprising how much difference a little bit of bacon makes in the flavor.

Thanks for posting the link!!

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There are literally dozens of versions and verses. My favorite version ends:

When I’m dead and laid to rest,
Put a bowl of butter beans on my chest,
And a biscuit in my hand.
I’ll sop my way to the Promised Land.

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This is why one should not post after returning from a wine dinner after consuming a couple bottles of wine! Anyway, thanks for the education.

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I re-made the Summer Succotash for a dinner for friends. THIS time at least I found some fresh cranberry beans and shelled them. And I was closer to the recipe in other ways – used the arugula and basil etc. Refreshing and tasty!

Of course one major point of making this dish now is that in a couple of weeks in NJ we won’t be able to get fresh local corn or tomatoes any more. it’ll be impossible to make this dish with all fresh ingredients. So it was a nice way to celebrate those flavors and bid them good-bye for a while. I was still stuck with the frozen baby limas, hard to find a butterbean around here.

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Remind me next year, Frank, and I’ll send you some.

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Know nothing about butter beans, but I saw we were posting songs…