Went to college at U of AL back in early 60’s – guy there named Johnny Cain – used to perform at bars in BHM – his “hit” song was “All I Want is a Bowl of Butter Beans”
Denise Lunsford Hayes, N Carol Thomas. This was so cute. My mama made the best Lima Beans! I sure miss eating them. My husband is a midwesterner (yankee) and doesn’t understand the goodness of these beans so I have never cooked any.
Daryl E. Ratterree
B y golly, teach that yankee what good eating is all about, Fix him a great big bowl of Butter Beans. Must have onion and cornbread to go with it.
Lived in AL almost 40 years and have never eaten a dried butter bean. We ate them fresh off the vine or canned/frozen while they were small, green and tender. Cooked in a little water with real butter and salt. Nothing else. But I loved dried pinto beans cooked with onion and jalapeno peppers.
Shelled the dried beans by the light of kerosene lamps and firelight. Ate many dry butter beans as a child with cornbread, beet pickles and sauerkraut!
Oh, c’mon, you can put some ham in it. I like ham in mine, but I actually prefer limas to all others. Still, you can’t go wrong with a good butterbean cooked this way. I can’t eat canned beans at all. They’re awful! My mother puts onions on top of hers, with ketchup! 😉
Amen Sandra — and a little salt pork or ham and dont cook over 30 – 40 minutes or you ll have a soggy overcooked mess! these commandments sound more like black eyed peas
Although both lima beans and butter beans come from the same genus, they are actually two different types of beans. The smaller version is known as baby lima beans, while the larger versions of lima beans are what many people know to be butter beans. Both types of beans are high in fiber, virtually fat free and a good source of protein. The presence of dietary fiber allows people to lower cholesterol and regulate their blood sugar levels. Like most legumes, lima beans and butter beans are boiled in water before eating, and it is usually a good idea to soak them overnight before cooking.
I’m thinking north AL dried them and south AL ate them the other way. My husband’s family in north AL ate a lot of different dried beans. I’d never had any sort of dried bean until I met him.
I grew up in south Alabama, and we never called these “butterbeans”. We called these Lima or Navy beans. Our favorite butterbeans were “speckled butterbeans”, and were never dried. I never cared for the little green ones.
Justin Joe
Totally different animals.
Carol Evans
Love dry Liam beans, kraut and winners, corn bread sweet validly onion and a glass of ice tea.
Butter beans butter beans
Good for your heart
The more you eat
The more you fart
The more you fart
The better you feel
So eat your butter beans
At every meal
Well I am from a family in Mobile, Alabama and we ate the large ones all my life . We called them “big Lima beans”. I get so confused when they are called butter beans.
Justin Joe
Nothing to be confused about. Small green are limas. Big white are butter.
That is the opposite of what I have heard all my life!!!!
Linda H. Small
having picked “butter beans” at my grandmother’s patch in Henry County, AL I can attest that butter beans are green, smallish, and taste like butter! Those big while beans are commonly known by both southerners and Yankees as lima beans. Nothing beats a fresh, green butter bean!
There is a difference between butter beans and Lima beans. True butter beans are in the soybean family or legumes family. And Lima beans are from the pea family. They do taste very similar though.
Justin Joe
Not to me they don’t. A green limabean has a distinct taste as does a butterbean.
Dana Smallwood
Butterbeans & Limas are the same!! The green lima bean is the smaller immature bean & the larger butterbean is the mature beige bean. Think of the butter as the older big brother of the green lima.
Put an eighth teaspoon of baking soda in when cooking and you toot less. Crumble cornbread up in a big plate pour butterbeans over cornbread then spiral catsup over it and mix it all up and start shoveling it in! Mmm, Mmm good!
[…] are many recipes for the perfect glass of sweet iced tea, but like the Ten Commandments for Grits, Ten Commandments of Deep South Butterbeans, and Ten Commandments for Cornbread, there are some rules you […]
[…] The Ten Commandments of Deep South Butterbeans […]
Linda Horne Small
Oh my goodness! What an interesting post! I always ate my grandmother’s – Helen Horne of Abbeville, AL = butterbeans. Hard work picking them in the hot sun of July and August. However the rewards were a great pot of small, green butterbeans that truly tasted like sweet butter hot from cooking with a piece of ham. The big beans pictured I remember being told were Yankee beans called lima and not worth eating after growing butterbeans. I’ve worn my thumbnails to the quick shelling small butterbeans for freezing but nothing beats them. I have to scoop packages of frozen butterbeans in the markets here in Maine for they are not always available and I get so homesick for them. I do love everyone’s stories about beans and I will have to try the dried ones. Here in Maine we eat lots of different kinds of beans but not sure about large lima beans.
Linda
In our South Alabama family these dried beans were always called “Lima Beans.” Navy Beans are smaller and rounder–we had those occasionally, too. Only the fresh summer harvest was called “Butterbeans,” either green or speckled (my favorite!). Salt pork was a staple for vegetables, so we always had that in our Lima Beans. My aggravating teen-aged brothers took great delight in quoting Lona Fay Bows’ post above except they said Lima Beans, not Butter Beans. It began with “Lima Beans, good for the heart…” ! And yes, nothing better than cornbread with Lima Beans!
Just finished cooking some,going to have beans,ham and sweet potatoes for supper.I am from the older generation who still eat supper,not dinner,that was eat in my day at noon.
My mama always referred to fresh beans as “butter beans” — either the green or speckled kind. The ones in the picture were called “dried limas.” There are small ones and large ones. I call the large ones “big fat limas.” I love to cook them with chopped ham and serve them with hot cornbread and sweet coleslaw. Good and so good for you.
Butter bean” is a term that some use for particular types of lima beans; the only difference is in regional terminology. The lima bean is a domesticated legume with the scientific name of Phaseolus lunatus that gets its name from its place of origin, Lima, Peru.
Although both lima beans and butter beans come from the same genus, they are actually two different types of beans. The smaller version is known as baby lima beans, while the larger versions of lima beans are what many people know to be butter beans.
Speckled butter beans are a variety of lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus) that is suited especially to hot areas. They can survive drought, but are more productive with one inch of water per week. The seeds germinate only when the soil temperature is above 65 degrees and the plants grow best when the temperature is above 70 degrees. High levels of nitrogen may cause lush leaf growth with no beans
Those are Lima beans, according to the what we always called them. Butterbeans should be fresh speckled butterbeans from the garden and preferably mixed with fresh black eyed peas or purple hull peas.
sorry… but the butter beans i grew up eatin in Alabama are GREEN… not these white ones !!! butter beans and field peas… best from my grandmother’s garden!!
There was a saying when I was little about butter beans: Butterbeans, Butterbeans, good for your heart; the more you eat them, the more you Fart! Alabama saying. Still love Butterbeans.
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Not true in my part of the south
Love them
And a hunk of raw onion! Good eatin.’
Corn bread tomato yum
Published by a Yankee. 9&10 are the same and there should not be a 11 in the 10 commandments.
Love them
These are my all time favorite. Love them.
My mother called these broad axe beans and she was from South Monroe Co. Serve with cornbread, raw onion, and pepper sauce.
“””They’re good for your heart!”””
I always put a big ole spoonful of mayonnaise in mine…..
Heather Satterfield
Are Butter Beans the same as Lima Beans?
yes, they are the same as dried Lima beans.
Went to college at U of AL back in early 60’s – guy there named Johnny Cain – used to perform at bars in BHM – his “hit” song was “All I Want is a Bowl of Butter Beans”
Amen pass the cornbread
amen good eating
pass the cornbread and onions too…Yummy!
Denise Lunsford Hayes, N Carol Thomas. This was so cute. My mama made the best Lima Beans! I sure miss eating them. My husband is a midwesterner (yankee) and doesn’t understand the goodness of these beans so I have never cooked any.
B y golly, teach that yankee what good eating is all about, Fix him a great big bowl of Butter Beans. Must have onion and cornbread to go with it.
Love them big butter beans with cornbread
Me too. I grew up in Blount County and we called them ‘block busters’…guess why?
I know why
Love Lima Beans!!
Lived in AL almost 40 years and have never eaten a dried butter bean. We ate them fresh off the vine or canned/frozen while they were small, green and tender. Cooked in a little water with real butter and salt. Nothing else. But I loved dried pinto beans cooked with onion and jalapeno peppers.
Shelled the dried beans by the light of kerosene lamps and firelight. Ate many dry butter beans as a child with cornbread, beet pickles and sauerkraut!
The fried ones are so much better than green limas!
I love my butterbeans.
Just like my grandmother cooked them. I use olive oil though because I have become allergic to pork . It’s good but not as good with pork.
Commandments 10 and 9 are the same
Oh, c’mon, you can put some ham in it. I like ham in mine, but I actually prefer limas to all others. Still, you can’t go wrong with a good butterbean cooked this way. I can’t eat canned beans at all. They’re awful! My mother puts onions on top of hers, with ketchup! 😉
I enjoyed a butter bean pie with sisters Louise Weldon and Sue Sue Dean
Amen Sandra — and a little salt pork or ham and dont cook over 30 – 40 minutes or you ll have a soggy overcooked mess! these commandments sound more like black eyed peas
Bought a electric pressure cooker, takes 45 minutes to cook dry butter beans. No stirring no checking
I want some!
These look like large lima beans….best with cornbread! Or, biscuits!
Butterbeans.
Although both lima beans and butter beans come from the same genus, they are actually two different types of beans. The smaller version is known as baby lima beans, while the larger versions of lima beans are what many people know to be butter beans. Both types of beans are high in fiber, virtually fat free and a good source of protein. The presence of dietary fiber allows people to lower cholesterol and regulate their blood sugar levels. Like most legumes, lima beans and butter beans are boiled in water before eating, and it is usually a good idea to soak them overnight before cooking.
I want the butter bean fudge recipe that stuff is awesome
Love butter beans and cornbread. Green or dried.
I’m thinking north AL dried them and south AL ate them the other way. My husband’s family in north AL ate a lot of different dried beans. I’d never had any sort of dried bean until I met him.
Dried butter beans cooked in a iron pot. The best thing ever.
You need to introduce him to those fresh from the garden little green butterbeans Sherry Strength Whitson. He might be hooked for life!
oh I tried but didn’t work. But I did get him to try squash and he loves them now.
Me too.
I grew up in south Alabama, and we never called these “butterbeans”. We called these Lima or Navy beans. Our favorite butterbeans were “speckled butterbeans”, and were never dried. I never cared for the little green ones.
Totally different animals.
Love dry Liam beans, kraut and winners, corn bread sweet validly onion and a glass of ice tea.
That’s the way I cook my butter beans. And cornbread and buttermilk. Yum
Butter beans butter beans
Good for your heart
The more you eat
The more you fart
The more you fart
The better you feel
So eat your butter beans
At every meal
One of my favs
Good beans
Well I am from a family in Mobile, Alabama and we ate the large ones all my life . We called them “big Lima beans”. I get so confused when they are called butter beans.
Nothing to be confused about. Small green are limas. Big white are butter.
That is the opposite of what I have heard all my life!!!!
having picked “butter beans” at my grandmother’s patch in Henry County, AL I can attest that butter beans are green, smallish, and taste like butter! Those big while beans are commonly known by both southerners and Yankees as lima beans. Nothing beats a fresh, green butter bean!
You are correct Martha Jean.
I like little ones the best!
Rules are made to be broke…cook eat enjoy
There is a difference between butter beans and Lima beans. True butter beans are in the soybean family or legumes family. And Lima beans are from the pea family. They do taste very similar though.
Not to me they don’t. A green limabean has a distinct taste as does a butterbean.
Butterbeans & Limas are the same!! The green lima bean is the smaller immature bean & the larger butterbean is the mature beige bean. Think of the butter as the older big brother of the green lima.
Also, one of the commandments should be. 11. Know the difference, between butter bean, and lima bean.
Big butter beans with turnip greens and cornbread!!:)
That’sa picture of lima beans. True butterbeans are speckled.
Nope.
Nope true butter beans are small green one’s:however there are speckled butter beans which give a brown liquor when cooked
Love the healthy bean!
Love my cornbread and butterbeans.
These are big Limas not butterbeans
Nope.
We have speckled butterbeans or green butterbeans,but in Wagarville Al,we have Big Limas…and the picture you posted is big.Limas
Judi Hightower
Put an eighth teaspoon of baking soda in when cooking and you toot less. Crumble cornbread up in a big plate pour butterbeans over cornbread then spiral catsup over it and mix it all up and start shoveling it in! Mmm, Mmm good!
[…] are many recipes for the perfect glass of sweet iced tea, but like the Ten Commandments for Grits, Ten Commandments of Deep South Butterbeans, and Ten Commandments for Cornbread, there are some rules you […]
[…] The Ten Commandments of Deep South Butterbeans […]
Oh my goodness! What an interesting post! I always ate my grandmother’s – Helen Horne of Abbeville, AL = butterbeans. Hard work picking them in the hot sun of July and August. However the rewards were a great pot of small, green butterbeans that truly tasted like sweet butter hot from cooking with a piece of ham. The big beans pictured I remember being told were Yankee beans called lima and not worth eating after growing butterbeans. I’ve worn my thumbnails to the quick shelling small butterbeans for freezing but nothing beats them. I have to scoop packages of frozen butterbeans in the markets here in Maine for they are not always available and I get so homesick for them. I do love everyone’s stories about beans and I will have to try the dried ones. Here in Maine we eat lots of different kinds of beans but not sure about large lima beans.
In our South Alabama family these dried beans were always called “Lima Beans.” Navy Beans are smaller and rounder–we had those occasionally, too. Only the fresh summer harvest was called “Butterbeans,” either green or speckled (my favorite!). Salt pork was a staple for vegetables, so we always had that in our Lima Beans. My aggravating teen-aged brothers took great delight in quoting Lona Fay Bows’ post above except they said Lima Beans, not Butter Beans. It began with “Lima Beans, good for the heart…” ! And yes, nothing better than cornbread with Lima Beans!
So where is the festival?
Ok I found it, it’s in Pinson.
Maris Dorough
Where do I go to get these tasty butterbeans?
These are Lima beans . Butter beans are green.
In the south, the green ones are Fordhook limas. The white ones are butter beans.
Just finished cooking some,going to have beans,ham and sweet potatoes for supper.I am from the older generation who still eat supper,not dinner,that was eat in my day at noon.
I grew up with dinner at noon and supper in the evening also.
My mama always referred to fresh beans as “butter beans” — either the green or speckled kind. The ones in the picture were called “dried limas.” There are small ones and large ones. I call the large ones “big fat limas.” I love to cook them with chopped ham and serve them with hot cornbread and sweet coleslaw. Good and so good for you.
You might try Okra, and black eyed pea, and fried apple pie.
Randy Warren… This has your name on it
But where is it? Read the commandments but didnt see more info on festival!
Pinson AL is what their website says 🙂
Heather Kelley ohhhhh and where is that? And are we going?
Where is it?
Did you say it is a gas fest!!!!????
May have to detour through AL to NC…. ;-D
There are dried Lima beans…lol
A big onion goes good with butter,,!,
Love them there butter beans. My Granny makes the best.
These look like Lima beans, not butter beans
Butter beans I eat are green 🙂
This picture is NOT butter beans Tish!
“Just a bowl of butterbeans, pass the cornbread if you please. I don’t want no collard greens, all I want is a bowl of butterbeans.”
Butter bean” is a term that some use for particular types of lima beans; the only difference is in regional terminology. The lima bean is a domesticated legume with the scientific name of Phaseolus lunatus that gets its name from its place of origin, Lima, Peru.
Although both lima beans and butter beans come from the same genus, they are actually two different types of beans. The smaller version is known as baby lima beans, while the larger versions of lima beans are what many people know to be butter beans.
Speckled butter beans are a variety of lima bean (Phaseolus lunatus) that is suited especially to hot areas. They can survive drought, but are more productive with one inch of water per week. The seeds germinate only when the soil temperature is above 65 degrees and the plants grow best when the temperature is above 70 degrees. High levels of nitrogen may cause lush leaf growth with no beans
I love being from the south!
These big ole butter beans are my favorite
Would like to be there for that.
David McCarley
where is this festival?
Like Andy Griffith once said ” I done had a craven flung on me!””
I love me some butterbeans.
2 and 5 are not mandatory. 4 is!
Those are Lima beans, according to the what we always called them. Butterbeans should be fresh speckled butterbeans from the garden and preferably mixed with fresh black eyed peas or purple hull peas.
Wade Giddens depends on where in south you’re from but then family in the north called northern beans butter beans.
I grew up in southern Alabama, in a county on the Florida state line.
Wade Giddens yup. Lima beans to me too.
Butter beans in Central AL. But whatever you’re from they’re GOOD!
They are Butterbeans. I don’t care where you are from.
Butter beans with fried cornbread. Yummy. From Southeast Alabama
Laurinda Murphy Norris Marcia Dukes
That is some good eating , I usually have them about once a week . I’m from south Alabama, Mobile county.
Share GasX with everyone who eats the butterbeans.
Well i was raised in arkansas in the cotton fields an all beans r good if you got cornbread n a onion r hot pepper to go with them
My favorite
Michele Pierce Bennett
Autumn Amonett, Jackson Hubbard, Ashton Hall
I picked the. I ate them!
Ralph A. Welch
I hate them . Born and raised southern. Eat to many as a child
Yummy
I hate Lima beans but love Butterbeans! My husband is the opposite.
What Beverly Etheredge Oyarzun said…
sorry… but the butter beans i grew up eatin in Alabama are GREEN… not these white ones !!! butter beans and field peas… best from my grandmother’s garden!!
From just north of Birmingham and we always called these butter beans and yes, ate them with cornbread!!! Yum!!!
Them ain’t butterbeans!
Lima beans not butter beans.
Amen on the butterbeans. Just thinking about them and a hot peace of cornbread makes me wan to cry.
Lynn Hessenbruch Cox
There was a saying when I was little about butter beans: Butterbeans, Butterbeans, good for your heart; the more you eat them, the more you Fart! Alabama saying. Still love Butterbeans.
Jesse Yancy
On the stove right now♥️
Love butter beans
I love the speckled or color butterbeans but they are so hard to find!
This photo looks more like lima beans.