Recipes:

Jack's quasi-Southern green beans

When I was young, I loved eating the green beans that had been "canned" by my aunts. At the time, calling them "canned" confused me because they were in mason jars. My aunts were two old country women who never married and spent their entire lives living in the house that had been built around 1890 or 1900 by their father. I still recall their argument when they killed a snake in their garden over whether to hang the snake over the top of the fence belly-up or back-up to make it rain.

This recipe grew out of my attempts to make green beans that tasted the same as what I had on my aunts' farm when I was young. I stumbled across a shortcut that at first makes no sense whatsoever, but in retrospect, perhaps it does.

This is another "not heart-healthy" recipe, and any vitamins the canned green beans had is probably long gone by the time they're done cooking. Of course, in the South we either have to fry it or add grease/fat, that's just what we do. In the case of okra, we take a vegetable that's already greasy, coat it in batter, and fry it, so that should tell you something about the regional cuisine...

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Ingredients:

two cans of regular green beans (not French style, and use canned, not frozen, the texture of the frozen just "ain't right")

1/2 teaspoon of white vinegar

one tablespoon of dried minced onion

1/2 teaspoon of worcestershire sauce

a piece of fatback or salt pork about the size of a deck of cards

and here's the weird shortcut - a packet of Good Seasons regular Italian dressing mix (NOT the fat-free stuff)

Preparation:

cut the fatback or salt pork into short strips about one inch long and maybe 1/8 of an inch thick (if you want to be able to pick it out when eating, you can dice it finely if you like)

put the fatback into the bottom of the pot

add the dried minced onion

add about 1/3 of the packet of the italian dressing mix

add the green beans

add the vinegar

add the worcestershire sauce

if the green beans are not completely covered with water, add water until they are covered

heat to a boil, and boil for at least 10 minutes

turn the heat down to a simmer level, cover the pot, and heat for another 1/2 hour or longer (longer tends to taste better)

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I tried adding different spices to get the same taste as what was added when my aunts canned their green beans, and one day when I was out of spices but wanted green beans I just tried the italian dressing mix. Oddly enough, it worked. There must have been some spices in common. I don't even bother trying to reproduce the spices, it's too easy to buy the packets, but that's why it's "quasi-Southern"... I don't think the traditional recipe used Good Seasons Italian dressing mix!!!

By the way, when eating this, it's OK to eat the fatback, but I wouldn't unless you exercise a lot or are a child... It's called fatback for a reason.