Hunting the Elusive Hominy Bean
When you go hunting old recipes you often encounter mysteries. What, for instance, is a hominy bean? In January 1893, The Southern Planter printed a detailed description of the work of a Gullah cook (yes, tinged with the old Mammy stereotype) in her kitchen. Part of the sketch offered comments on the making of large hominy, a famous processed corn dish, in which the kernels were soaked in lye water, then were taken to the mortar and pounded clear of their skins. “There, too, was the hominy mortar, hollowed with slow fire out of a larger trunk. It was used only in winter, and by the men when rainy days kept them indoors.” “Beating Hominy” was an art. Only the soundest white flint corn was taken, and all imperfect grains picked out and thrown away. What remained was slightly wetted, then thrown by handfuls into the mortar, and beaten gently by a rounded oak pestle till the husk was detached and the grains broken in half. Then it was winnowed free of husks and dust, washed twice, and put in a pot with at least ten times its bulk in cold water. The pot went over the fire, and boiled and boiled—all day was none too long. When the hominy was half done, a small bowlful of hard white “hominy beans” were added. More water went in from time to time, and great care was taken that there should be no scorching at side or bottom. Next morning mammy dipped out a skilletful of the white curdy mass, fried it in hot sweet lard until there was a rich brown crust all over the bottom, and sent it smoking hot to the breakfast table along with fried ham, sausage, fried sweet potatoes, hot biscuit, hot hoe cakes, waffles, or egg bread” (p34).
What were these hominy beans added to the pot? They were white and they were dried—that was evident. I looked to some standard references, for instance Kym S. Rice & Martha B. Katz-Hyman’s, World of a Slave: Encyclopedia of the Material Life of Slaves in the United States. It said “Hominy was bland and boring, but filling. If enslaved people were lucky, it was seasoned with a bit of preserved or salted pork or a piece of fatback, or it was enjoyed with black-eyed peas or other cowpeas, often called “hominy beans.” Upon reading this, I immediately had suspicions. First, hominy did not taste bland or boring if made with excellent corn, such as sea island white flint, or Hickory King white dent, so I wondered how dubious the last part of the sentence was. Usually there was some degree of precision in 19th century discriminations between beans (usually western hemisphere in origin) and field peas (usually African in origin). So I began looking. The ads for hominy beans begin popping up in southern and western newspapers in the 1830s. Then I found an ad in the December 28, 1860 issue of the Richmond Whig that listed from the same supplier Hominy beans and black eyed peas as separate items. So World of a Slave was wrong. For 80 years ads appeared, with an occasional recipe for hominy bean soup. But no characteristic description of the bean.
In doing research of this kind perseverance pays. Finally I came across the Rosetta Stone news blurb: in the North Carolina Weekly Standard: “NAVY BEANS—The Richmond Whig urges the farmers to plant navy beans for the army. It is a good idea and will be a profitable crop. White beans, hominy beans or navy beans, by whatever name known, is a good article of diet for our army, and should be produced I large quantities. “ (May 14, 1862), p3.
I should have known. No pea went by more different names than this one: white navy, marrow pea, pea bean, Boston small pea bean, white bean, California Tree Bean, white field bean. The first time they are referred to as Navy Beans in American newspapers is in the 1830s, apparently because they were standard ship provisions—small, dry, portable.
Navy Beans were and are among the commonest plants to be found in American fields, growing a foot and a half high, festooned with one foot long runners spreading about the plant. The leaves are deep green, ovate, and wrinkled—a shade over two inches long. The blosoms are white, the pods a yellow tinged green, growing up to four inches long. They are so fibrous that they are never used as green beans. The plants are greatly productive and relatively disease free. A century ago, it was grown so widely that USDA agronomists reckoned it matched in acreage all other commercial bean varieties combined. It was quick to mature and dry and the small pea shaped beans were easily shelled. It grew throughout the United States—and the small pea like chalk white beans were the foundation of two classic dishes: Boston Baked Beans and Navy Bean Soup. But recipes for their preparation abound in American newspapers—Navy Bean and Tomato Soup, Franks and Beans, Navy Bean and Salmon Salad, Pasta Fagiole with Navy Beans. Now we can add a Gullah preparation to the treasury of Navy Bean recipes.