"Janet Bostwick" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Christine Dabney" > wrote in message
> ...
>> Okay folks,
>>
>> We were chatting on the chat channel, and we started talking bout
>> butter beans. I grew up in VA, and I had them all the time. To me,
>> they are smaller than a lima, and a pale green. And they stay that
>> way when they are cooked. Boli agrees with this description of them.
>>
>> Others in the discussion say they are much larger, and tan. Or buff
>> or khaki colored.
>>
>> I have never seen butter beans like that...
>>
>> For those of you who know about butter beans, what is your description
>> of them?
>>
>> Christine
>
> Canned butterbeans are tan. I always thought that lima beans were the
> fresh lima bean and therefore green. I thought the butterbeans were the
> dried lima, cooked, and therefore tan. They aren't fava beans, the shape
> isn't right.
> Janet
>

In New York State, where I was born and lived as a child, butter beans were
tan and always either dried or canned. In Virginia, where I have lived for
most of my life, butterbeans (always written here as one word) are small and
green; they are the same things that in most of the US are called baby
limas. They are best fresh, excellent frozen (though they have to be cooked
longer than the package directions say), and barely acceptable canned. I am
told that they reason they are called butterbeans is that they must always
be cooked with a generous amount of butter as well as with salt and pepper
and a tiny dash of sugar. I love them!

Ron
Fredericksburg, VA