Last week I wrote about Appalachian mixed pickles (corn, green beans, and cabbage "sauerkrauted," so to speak). I got some comments  on the blog site and some from outside it. 

One of the non-blog comments was from a local lady here,  Joanne, who  gave me a quick tip for producing mixed pickles myself. She assured me that if I will buy and drain a can of corn and a can of beans, mix them with a can of undrained sauerkraut, and give the mixture time to marinate a little, I will have "shortcut" mixed pickles (my term). 

I am glad to have the tip, although the process lacks several things compared to real mixed pickles. 

One of the assets it lacks is a real bean inside the bean pod. In our gardens around here, we let our bean pods bulge with actual beans before we pick them, and that means mixed pickles full of wonderful, protein-laden beans and not just flat green hulls. 

I have never bought a bean at a store, whether canned or fresh, that had any "bean" in the bean pod, and something critical is lost in the translation.

I am grateful for Joanne's tip, and I don't say I won't try Joanne's method if a " jones" for mixed pickles overcomes me when the quarts I have are a memory, but until that time, I will stick with Opal Sexton's mixed pickles, gloating about all the lovely round beans pushed up against the glass of the jar before I consign them to the skillet.

There are other reasons. Besides missing what green beans bulging with real beans contribute to the taste and the look-and-gloat factor, the other lack in the store-bought method is the step of  stringing the beans. 

I grew up stringing beans before we cooked or canned them. In those days bean pods came with tough strings along the seams. You grabbed hold of the end of the bean with the little hook, and pulled away from the curve of the hook.  Generally, that little end broken off, and you could pull the string off that entire side. 

When you hit the end, you pinched off that end, and continued pulling the string back along the other side of the bean. (I know I'm introducing a confusion factor here by using "stringing beans" for two different processes. This is a precursor to stringing the beans with twine to dry and make shuckeys; with shuckeys you are stringing up strung beans.)

Appalachian women strung beans by the bushel. Multiple family members would sit on the porch, pile their lap, usually apron-covered, full of unstrung beans, and commence to string, dropping the strung bean into a container for further processing, and the strings back into the apron. At the end of several hours of replenishing the apron and removing the strings from the pod,delving among the pile of strings to find the whole beans,  the apron would be heaped with strings, the supply basket would be empty, and the pods would be ready to string with twine for drying or break for cooking or canning.

These day, if you buy fresh green beans at a grocery store, chances are they will be stringless. I learned this only recently, although I suspect it has been the case for ages. 

No doubt that is more convenient for factory processing, but it has taken away bean-stringings and the pleasure of working and visiting with others on a common task, not to mention the small hit of satisfaction that came with removing the strings from a single bean pod, accumulated into a large feeling of satisfaction as the last bean is finished. There are few pleasures greater than working together for a common goal.