Leather Britches

On cold winter days, my mother liked to put on a pot of leather britches to cook for a vegetable, like her ancestors had done long ago. Before the process of home canning came about, families used to dry what foods they could to use during the winter. In the Appalachians, we called dried green beans "leather britches." They likely got this name from the fact that they become tough and leathery as they're dried. 

There's two ways I've seen the beans dried. Mother sometimes removed the strings on the beans and, without breaking them, strung them up like a long necklace using a large needle and thread.

She then hung them in the rafters in the hot summer to dry. She also strung and broke them as if she were going to cook them and lay them out on a clean sheet in the sun or in the attic to dry. When the broken ones dried, she would sack them up. She'd leave the ones on the stings hanging.

These dried beans didn't taste like fresh ones, but they tasted all right when there's nothing fresh available. Mother would soak them overnight and rinse them, much like she did pinto beans. She would bring them to a boil and simmer them for a couple of hours or more. Then she would season them the same way she did any green beans. Most of the people in the Appalachians knew what leather britches were.

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