ISSUE 6, BEANS, Part 1: Tennessee Green Pod
The True History of a Southern Classic
Tennessee Green Pod Bean
A Classic Appalachian Ingredient
Sometimes a bean lives a dual life, prospering under two names for decades, just because seed companies like to brand items as their own. Such was the case with the Tennessee Green Pod Bean a.k.a. the Brown Bunch Bean. If you read the standard histories, such as William Woodbridge Tracy, Jr.’s American Varieties of Garden Beans (1907), the Tennessee Green Pod Bean was introduced by seedsman D. M. Ferry & Co. of Detroit in 1904. A further note indicates that it was “known in the South some time before that date, especially near Knoxville, TN.” But if you explore the Knoxville papers you’ll not find mention of the “Tennessee Green Pod Bean” prior to 1906. Instead you will find a bean possessing the same qualities, sold by D. R. Mayo Seeds of Memphis and Knoxville, under the name Brown Bunch Bean—indeed it was Knoxville’s most popular shelly bean. Mayo began selling seed for this bean in 1890 and it proved a steady seller well into the 20th century. Mayo 1926 Catalog: “This is a Mayo contribution to the American Garden. We introduced this bean on the Knoxville market thirty-six years ago. Since that time our sales on it have steadily increased till today this is the main variety of Bunch Beans in the Appalachian Section of the South.” (p6)
So how did D. R. Mayo get the seed and where did it come from? A June 29, 1943 letter to the Knoxville News-Sentinel tells the tale: “Mrs. Catherine Baum brought a handful of the beans from Germany to Wartburg, Tenn. In 1884. She gave a few of the beans to a Mrs. Heidel there. Years later a Mr. Brown who lived in South Knoxville and who was a good gardener, some of the beans. He improved them some, and put the seed on the market as the Brown bunch bean.” (p15). Mrs. Heidel was Rosalin Heidel (1834-1907), another native of Germany, who resided in Knoxville. My suspicion is that farmer Brown is a mythological character supplied to explain the bean’s name in Knoxville. Mayo makes clear in its catalog copy that it’s called the brown bunch bean because the beans when shelled are brown.
D. R. Mayo got hold of the beans in 1888 and would sell seed from 1890 well into the 1970s. Meanwhile his rival Otto Schwill of Memphis began selling the same bean in 1905 under the name that Ferry Seed used, Tennessee Green Pod, giving the variety a state-wide resonance.
W. W. Tracy’s Description. “Plant large, very spreading, with many semirunners and drooping branches, very thick stemmed, green throughout, early-intermediate in season, long in bearing, heavily to moderately productive. Leaf large, very dark green, very wide across leaflets, and of rough surface. Flowers white. Snap pods somewhat variable in size, long, moderately curved, often much bent to one side, very flat, deeply depressed at dorsal suture, very angular or narrowed at ventral suture, medium green, somewhat tough, stringy, of moderate fiber, of poor to medium quality, free from anthracnose. Point of pod moderately long and curved. Green shell pods generally borne well above foliage on thick fruit spurs, never splashed or appreciably colored except for black lines along sutures, very much depressed between seeds, much thicker at ventral than at dorsal side, about 6 - 7 inches long*, and usually containing 7 seeds much separated in pod. Dry pods fairly easy to thrash. Dry seeds of medium size, proportionally short, oval through cross section, generally well rounded at ends, straight at eye, solid dark hazel in color.”
If one were to boil down the virtues of this famous bean it would be this—it is an early season green pod bush bean that can be used as a snap bean, but if left to mature it supplies the first excellent shelled beans of the season—cut short beans (i.e. flattened ends).
Several companies sell the bean, but the histories supplied are incorrect. Reimer Seeds carry it. http://www.reimerseeds.com/tennessee-green-pod-bush-beans.aspx