11 August 2015: Southern Slow-Cooked Pole Beans
One of the most misunderstood dishes in all of Southern cooking is green beans slow-simmered with salt pork or ham until they're tender and deeply infused with the pork flavor. It's easy to understand why it has been misunderstood when one sees the misguided mess that all too often passes for this dish in "Southern" style diners and cafeterias: canned or generic hybrid green beans that inhabit most supermarket produce bins, indifferently boiled to Hell and back with a chunk of boiled ham or half a dozen slices of smoked bacon until they're the color of army fatigues and have surrendered what little flavor they had to begin with.
However, just because it's often done badly doesn't mean there's nothing wrong with the idea. Read More