Succotash

For me, succotash is a dish that speaks of heritage.  Our family is descended from the very early settlers that came to Barnstable, MA in 1639, so they coexisted side by side with the pilgrims who lived only a few miles away.  One of my earliest memories was my father showing me the earth in the vegetable garden- smelling the richness of the black soil with all the life teaming inside.  He taught me about the three sisters- corn, beans, and squash- how they grow together- each complimenting the other- each providing what the other needed to grow.

Another early memory was my grandfather's dairy herd.  First thing in the  morning, the cows would go out to the meadows, they would graze all day in the sunshine, and at sunset they would come in to give the most wonderful milk I have ever tasted.  Some fields would be allowed to grow wild all summer and those would be cut down in late August to make hay.  There is nothing like the smell of hay drying in the sun- it's like summer in a bundle.  That hay was the food for the cows in the winter.  Although the Lieblers had a pasteurizer for the milk that they sold, the milk that the family drank was always raw milk.  I never had an ounce of pasteurized milk until we moved to Medway when I was 7 years old.  It took several weeks to get used to the taste- hard to say what the difference was- guess it was just more dead.  Even that milk though was more alive than homogenized milk.  Milk that is low-temp pasteurized has this wonderful cream that comes to the top- and to this day, I will pay a lot more for milk if it is not homogenized.

To make my grandma's succotash in the fall, you need to go out to the fields in early spring, spread a layer of fresh manure, till it under the ground and plant corn, lima beans, and pumpkins in a mound- let them grow until the corn is tall with full ears, and the lima bean plant has full green pods.  Then you take 3 or 4 ears off the corn plant, and fill a colander with lima beans.  Get into a rocking chair on the porch with a good view of the woods and start to open the lima bean pods and remove the beans.  I could never shuck lima beans without eating about 1/4 of the raw beans, so when I shuck the beans, I had to pick extra.  When the beans were done, you shuck the corn.  Time to make the succotash!

Succotash is very easy- you take corn, lima beans, butter, salt, pepper, and cream.  You take a great big cast iron skillet, and bring it to temperature with an inch stick of a stick of butter.  When the butter melts, the pan is hot.  Cut the kernels off the cob and be sure to scrape the cob to get as much of the milk as possible.  Then add the lima beans and let them come up to heat.  My mom cooked them just like that- parboiling the lima beans first- seasoning with salt and pepper to taste (lots of pepper- good succotah has a rich peppery taste) but my grandma did something extra special- she took the top cream off the raw milk in the pitcher and just let those beans swim in the cream- soaking up all the goodness- and if needed she added some more.  In the end, it is thick and rich and creamy.

I don't know how to get lima beans- except the frozen kind- but that takes all the fun out of it.  Maybe I need to take a 5 gallon pot- fill it with fertile soil- get a few worms for luck- and plant the three sisters for myself!