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Succotash
1 pint cooked lima beans 1 cup stewed or canned corn 1 1/2 tablespoons butter 1/2 teaspoon salt To prepare the beans, take four-fifths of a cup of dried lima beans, soak an hour or more in cold water; drain, and add one quart hot water. Cook until almost tender. Add the salt, and finish cooking. Allow the liquid to evaporate before removing from the stove. Add the corn, butter and salt. Reheat, and serve.
A plain wartime succotash built from dried limas rather than fresh, with almost nothing in it but beans, corn and butter. Two things need attention: the soak is far shorter than modern practice, and the salt is listed once in the ingredients but called for twice in the method.
- The soakAn hour in cold water is not enough for most dried limas sold now; give them at least four hours, or overnight, and expect 45-60 minutes of simmering after that. Start checking from 30 minutes on, as cooking time varies with the age and size of the beans.
- The double saltThe ingredient list gives 1/2 teaspoon, but the method adds salt to the beans partway through cooking and again at the end. Split the half teaspoon between the two additions, or salt the beans lightly and season to taste at the finish.
- QuantitiesFour-fifths of a cup of dried limas yields roughly the pint of cooked beans the recipe opens with, so you are choosing between the shortcut (canned or leftover beans) and the long version, not doing both. A pint of beans plus a cup of corn serves about four as a side, or two as a main dish.
- Evaporating the liquidThis is the step that decides the texture. Cook the beans uncovered at the end until the pan is nearly dry, or the corn and butter will float in bean broth instead of coating the beans.
- "Stewed or canned corn"Period canned corn was soft and starchy, and often packed with sugar and its own liquid. Drained canned corn works; frozen kernels want a minute or two longer in the pan; fresh corn cut from two ears is better than either and needs only heating through.
- The butterA tablespoon and a half is the whole seasoning apart from salt. Use it at the end, off direct high heat, so it emulsifies with the trace of liquid left rather than browning. Black pepper, cream or a little chopped parsley turn up in other succotash recipes if it tastes bare.
Succotash comes from the Narragansett msickquatash, generally glossed as boiled or broken corn kernels, and the dish of beans and corn cooked together is a long-established North American preparation, taken up by English colonists in New England in the seventeenth century. The use of dried limas rather than fresh shell beans marks this as a winter, pantry-shelf version of what had been a late-summer garden dish.