Kentucky Shuck Beans: How to Preserve Green Beans by Drying

Funny, isn’t it, how so many of our fondest memories are somehow tied to food?

I will probably always associate shuck beans with family get-togethers and Pappaw’s house in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky.  These little delicacies were no doubt absent from the table more often than I remember, but I can hardly think of a family reunion or church dinner in the mountains that didn’t include at least one pot of shuck beans, and I suppose I thought everyone in all the world knew the delight of eating green beans that had been dried in the sun.

I was wrong.

In fact, apparently next to no one knew that delight, except those whose family heritage somehow tied them back to the Appalachians.  

My favorite YouTube channel is probably what inspired me to make my own shuck beans, though it has never once mentioned them by name, or to my knowledge spoken of drying green beans in particular.  But, just like Townsends, I have interest in all things early America.  When our nation was mostly wilderness, foraging was essential for survival, and drying fruits and vegetables was a common means of food preservation. 

I had seen it done:  It was time for me to dry green beans for myself.

I posted some of the process on social media and that’s where the comments and questions began to surprise me.  I couldn’t believe how many people had never even heard of shuck beans or of drying green beans at all, which led me to do a little research.

For whatever reason, shuck beans tie almost exclusively to southern Appalachia.  Why?  No one really seems to know, but the practice of drying green beans was apparently most common in the mountains of eastern Kentucky and Tennessee and western Virginia, and may have come to the region with Scottish, Irish, or even German settlers.  Some attribute shuck beans to the Cherokee, though green beans may not have been familiar to North American native tribes.  Cherokee methods for drying foods may very well have been implemented by early settlers, however, and so perhaps shuck beans developed as a mix of European and native American practice.  

Beans could be a good source of protein over the long winter months when weather was bad and food was scarce.  Even the best cool spring house or root cellar could only keep green beans fresh for so long, and jars for pickling and salting beans for long-term preservation weren’t always readily available, particularly in the more remote areas of Appalachia. 

And so the settlers of the day turned to drying.  In summer sun, the process took only a few days.  In less ideal weather, beans could be strung up to dry indoors.  Once they were fully dehydrated, the beans could be stored away in cloth bags to keep easily for a year or more.  

When it was time to cook the green beans, they were soaked in water overnight to rehydrate them, then the water was drained off and fresh water was added for cooking.  Simmered for hours with a little salt and salt pork or bacon, the beans could provide a delicious and nutritious protein source even in the dead of winter.

Why people like my grandmother and her sisters were still making shuck beans even in the late 20th century when canning methods were simpler and freezer bags were readily available, I don’t know, except that it was a cherished tradition of their ancestors.  

Not to mention the beans are delicious!  The drying and rehydrating adds a texture and depth of flavor that doesn’t exist in fresh cooked or canned green beans.  The beans tend to fall apart, (to look shucked, thus the name,) and there’s a velvety smoothness to the seeds that is nothing like you find in regular green beans.

My grandmother often spread her beans on an old screen door in the loft of their barn.  I haven’t tried using a screen yet, but this summer I dried beans both in the sunshine and in the cool of the house, both whole beans and broken.  

In blazing, all-day August sun, I found I could finish a batch in as little as 3 days’ time.  I spread my beans on a table or sheet first thing in the morning and left them out all day, only bringing them in at night.  When fully dry, a pound’s worth of beans could be reduced to a cup or less of shrunken, wrinkled pods.

Indoors, strung with a needle and kitchen string, the process took far longer, at least 3 to 4 weeks, and the texture in the end was somewhat different as well.  Beans dried indoors seemed more leathery, though I noticed little difference in the flavor or texture when cooked.  

Dried indoors or out, both were good, and both were eaten almost as quickly as they were made!  I learned my lesson though, and this time I’m saving a recent batch for a special occasion some time in the winter.  

In the midst of my experimenting this summer, I came across this cookbook, Kentucky Hospitality, at a local flea market. 

Published in 1976, it mentions shuck beans, (also called shucky beans,) and talks briefly about the drying method and cooking.  How exciting to find a Kentucky cookbook that mentions exactly the methods I grew up seeing and the foods I grew up eating!

My grandparents are long dead and I don’t have as much reason to get down to Knox county anymore.  It’s amazing to me that something so simple as shuck beans can transport me there.  It’s like a taste of the past and a connection to a way of life that is at once familiar and foreign to me with all my modern sensibilities.  

It’s a taste of history.  And it has made for a fun, and delicious, summer!