The Maligned Lima Bean

These half-moon legumes go by many names and spark many strong opinions. Anney and Lauren explore the science and history of the lima bean/butterbean.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to favorite protection of I Heeart Radio.
I'm Annie Reas and I'm Lauren Volga BAM and today
we're talking about lima beans. Yes, this is a me suggestion.
This was me. It is it is. I feel like
Annie is continually. Is this correct? Are you thinking about
lima beans like every day? Pretty much? I love lima

(00:29):
beans slash butter beans. Um, And I was thinking, I
was trying to go through the list of like my
favorite foods and which ones we haven't done, and I
was like, wait a minute, lima beans. I've always loved them,
I always will. I Actually they're like a treat. I
classify them as a treat, so I don't get them

(00:49):
that often. Okay, Yeah, I have like my emergency frozen
back in case right right right right hand, blanched by
by you or someone else who has gone through pain. Yes,
as many of you long time listeners know, I have
a lot of dramatic memories of blanching butter beans and peace,

(01:13):
and so I went through pain for these and that's
maybe that's one of the reasons why I'm so hesitant.
You know, I put him on a pedestal. Now, I
still I really have questions for you and or like
primarily your mother, about why like gloves or tongs were
not used in this process to save your your your poor,

(01:38):
your poor child hands. I think maybe she was just
used to it, and I was being a big surprised baby,
not expecting you forget how how badly like cold things
can burn your hands, especially after hot Yeah. Especially, yeah.
I mean if you've if you've gained you know, like
several decades, but maybe not several I don't Oh my goodness,

(02:01):
I feel like I'm just dissing on your mom. Now.
This was not the intended conseration. My mom is a delight.
After you've built up a good, a good, you know,
hardy kitchen hand, you can forget that other people maybe
have not. Yes, yes, perhaps that isn't she she never

(02:21):
seemed fathered by it. Maybe I'm just a bigger baby
than her. I don't know. Maybe you just okay. I
used to eat them for lunch, like even in elementary school,
and the kids would pick they My lunch choices were
constantly being judged. And right now, um, I just made

(02:44):
that oxtail stew again last night, and that has better
beans in it, so good. Oh my gosh. Um. And
when I was thinking about this, I was confused. I've
I've long been confused why you couldn't buy them fresh
like he was just can and or frozen except for
that like window where my mom would buy them fresh
I think in June or July. Um. But it did

(03:06):
involve that terrible blanching process. But now thanks to this episode,
I know, and yes we we we will get to
that in a moment, and I will I will say that,
um that I've I've always loved a lima bean. I
never really understood. I mean, I was a weird kid,
like I I'm a weird human. Um, but uh, I
never I did grow up um with parents who were

(03:28):
you know, my dad was a chef for a cook
depending on what terminology you want to use, um. My
my mom was a home cook um. And they both
really encouraged me um and demonstrated, uh, eating a breadth
of foods and trying things um. And you know, I
went through my phases like any other kid. But um,
but I feel like I other than like a couple

(03:49):
of very specific phases. I always liked lima beans. I
never I never minded them, and I don't think I
cannot remember a time when I've purchased them as an adult,
and and that that changes. That changes not today because
I'm not going to a grocery store today, but soon.
I like this. I'm behind you. I support this decision.

(04:13):
You need more Lima beans in your life. I just
like i'd like boil them, and I do it like
a little under the time, because I like them a
little bit firmer spicy seasoning in there. Okay, but there's
a lot of things you can do with them, a
lot of amazing things. But all right, I suppose we
should get to our questions. Lima beans, what are they? Well,

(04:41):
the Lima bean is a bean of many names, butter bean,
sieva being, double bean, Madagascar bean in Australia, Burma bean,
Duffin bean, Rangoon bean, civit bean, Carolina beans, sugar bean,
java bean. And I'm pretty sure that that's just the
ones in English. Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot of names,

(05:03):
a lot of name confusion. In my house, it's it's well,
I'm a bean or butter bean, pretty interchangeable. Yeah. I
don't think I heard the term butter being until after
I had been in Atlanta for a while, and then like, uh,
you know, like I had to look into it and
I was like, oh, it's a lima bean. Oh yeah,

(05:23):
okay cool. The botanical name though, is um Fasiolus lunatis.
Their lagoon that grows on these kind of tender stemmed plants,
either short and bushy or climbing and viny, and the
plants grow these pretty little flowers and green to white
to purple um. They remind me a little bit of
like snow drops or snap dragons, real cute um. If pollinated,

(05:46):
they will develop these long, flat bean pods that each
contain three to six seeds, and those seeds will develop
into the chubby, flattish, half moon shaped beans that we
know and love, or do not love, as the case maybe.
M There are a bunch of varieties that are generally
divided by their bean size, small versus large. When they're immature,

(06:10):
they're green, and once they're mature they can develop colors
from creamy white to deep burgundy to striped. Uh. Many
varieties are poisonous when they're mature and fresh. They contain
the cyanide compound that you've got to cook out, and
so that's why if you get fresh lima beans you're
gonna want to blanch them. Yep, I did not know that. Yep,

(06:34):
this is this is what this is the source of
your pain. Annie Dawn, you cyanide um. Drying the beans
also does solve this, um, And I'm like nine percent
sure that this is why frozen and canned varieties are
often made using immature green limas um. I personally am

(06:56):
mostly familiar with lima beans cooked whole and used alone
a side dish, or as you might use any bean
in soups, stews, salads, and fillings for stuff. Y'all. Here
in Atlanta, El Mariachi has a Three Sisters burrito and
it is my favorite. Oh it does sound good, corn
lemba beans and tomatoes. We're gonna we're gonna get back

(07:17):
to that in a minute. But um, but yeah, this
is not the only way that you can use them.
The dried seeds can be ground into a powder or
or flour for providing body to soups and breads. Have
also seen recipes for both sweet and savory, like cooked
bean mashes skin strained out I think, not like chunky
like a hummus, but smooth um served warm either way.

(07:38):
In Peruvian cuisine, um that immature seed pods can be
cooked whole. The leaves can be cooked and eaten too.
But but yeah, you can use them. Yeah anyway, anyway
you use beans um as a homis or like a
vegetarian patte um and ice cream. M Yeah. Interesting. And

(07:59):
when they are and lima, beans do get a little
bit slimy um. Drain and rinse your canned beans, y'all,
and the texture can go sort of like sort of
like tacky. But when they're frozen or dried and reconstituted,
they're sort of like silky, creamy and tender with this
delicate flavor like not too beanie, not to be not

(08:22):
too beanie, just so just right beanie beanie. Yeah. Doing
this episode, I realized how much I love the word bean.
It's a good word. It's a really good word. We
got a lot of fun instances of it throughout, So
look forward to that. Yeah. But in the meantime, what
about the nutrition, Well, uh, you know, beans are plants seeds.

(08:48):
A plant will pack all the stuff that are that
are growing little baby plant will will will need to
get its start um into its seeds. So these things
are generally pretty nutritionally dense and Uh, Lima beans in
particular have lots of protein, lots of fiber, really good
vitamins and minerals in their very little fat. So like
maybe parrot was something that contains some fat. Um, But yeah,

(09:10):
they are a great addition to dishes to help up
a little baby you grow. Oh yeah, what about numbers.
We've got some numbers, right, Oh, we've got some number
adjacent information. Um. Apparently there's there's very little international trade
in lima beans, as their crop yields are relatively low,

(09:31):
and they're thus grown for for mostly local or you know,
like national consumption. The US does grow the most though, um,
and within the US, California is the top grower. UM.
They're also big in Delaware, Maryland, and Wisconsin. You know
what I meant to look up, but I forgot. I
am curious. I looked this up like years ago, like

(09:53):
high school, like a decade ago. Um, people's least favorite
vegetable and I can't remember. I feel like Liama beans
was pretty high on there. I'm guessing if I had
to guess, i'd say cabbage maybe. I mean those are
both things that are often maligned from I don't know, yeah,

(10:18):
like like brussels, egg plant, broccoli, turnips. I'm saying just
a lot of Brassica related things, which is yeah, like
there's some better flavors involved in there, or like the
smell when they're cooking, um, or just or just like
the way that they've been prepared. Uh yeah, well and

(10:39):
often like because I'm thinking back in my own experience
and it was often the canned varieties of vegetables and
orbit we're having. Sure canning is just I mean, it's
an amazing technology that will, um, you know, allow you
to preserve some of a food's nutrition, but but honestly
not all of it always go fresh our froze when

(11:00):
you can you all um and uh because yeah, it
just MUCKs with the heat process that you have to use.
Can stuff generally destroys some of the nutrients and definitely
some of the like structural integrity. You don't want to
destroy the structural integrity of your butter beans, you don't. No. Well,

(11:23):
while they might have a lot of detractors, they do
have a lot of fans like me. Um, there's a
butter bean festival in Pinson, Alabama. I apologize with my
mim pronouncement, but it looks like Pinson. There you go. Um.
There is also a Lima bean festival in West Cape May,
New Jersey, which was at some point apparently known as

(11:44):
the Lima Bean Capital of the East Coast. Oh, I
love that so much. I love these like claims to face. Yeah,
take this away from us. We are the Lima being capital. Um.
And if it's not, if it isn't clear generally the

(12:05):
divide in the United States in the South, butter beans
might be more used than in other places. But yeah,
it's still interchangeable, but kind of it's it's more of
a Southern term I think than um than lima beans.
And right, yeah, but but again, um, I think Carolina
beans might be a word that's used in some areas.
I think a lot of these terms might have might

(12:26):
have originated from like from like where specific people imported
their beans from for the first time. Yes, and just
associated it there m hm. And And we're going to
talk about many of those of those travels and twists,
Yes we are. But first we're gonna pause to a

(12:48):
quick break for a word from our sponsor. And we're back.
Thank you spawn there, yes, thank you. So a Lima
beans originated in South America, and either six thousand or
five thousand BC. And many experts, I guess lima being

(13:12):
experts pinpoint to are in some cases three, there's a
there's an argument for three separate varieties of lima beans
that branched off and went their own ways. I think
it's large seated and small seated, and I think medium
seated in the third. Oh, okay, okay, yes, what is large?
What is small? These are the questions of our lima

(13:34):
being times um. One of these varieties originated from the
Andes and was domesticated over six thousand years ago in Peru.
That's the that's the large version. Yes, and at the
time they came in many different colors, but the poison
level was also higher. Oh oh dear, you're indeed, but

(13:55):
they came out like purples and yell it's all kinds
of colors. A smaller seeded version spread up through Guatemala
and the eastern seaboard of North America, where these these
beings were incorporated into the diets of indigenous tribes and
uh and that's where you might see today um in
the United States beings marketed as baby limas and those

(14:17):
are going to be um. Some of those varietyals right right, right, right, Um.
Ancient Peruvians really loved these lima beans. For instance, the
moche Are Mochica prior to the inca Um not only
grew these beings and enjoyed eating them, but also used
them in art. And perhaps these beings were even the

(14:40):
basis of the Mochica's first form of written language. And
this is a theory based on pottery remains, or not
even remains, some of them still a whole uh, that
these these pots were decorated with beans that were patterned
with these lines and dots, which yeah, some some people
think suggests an early method of written communication. And it's honestly,

(15:02):
I know, my big nerd and I like my cred
goes out a lot of times when I'm like, no,
this is really interesting and people are like, it's interesting
to you. But it's really honestly cool looking like these
pots the beans on it. I recommend it. Yeah, very cool. Um,
so from archaeologist Gael Riser. Once considered edible and part

(15:25):
of the subsistence space, the line of being became restricted
to use as a status symbol or in ceremonies. Moche
elites politically manipulated the line of being and effectively removed
it from regular dietary consumption, while concurrently elevating it through
ideological association with the Moche warrior class. It is reasonable
to extend the attributes of prestige and privilege associated with

(15:47):
the Moche warrior class to both the Lina being and
its iconographic counterpart, the being Warrior, which thereafter it came
to symbolize metaphors of life, death, and rejuvenation. It's amazing, yeah,
status symbol love it. Yeah. Um. Meanwhile, after Lima beans

(16:09):
were adopted by Native Americans, they were often used as
a vital part of the three sisters Corn, squash, and
beans grown together. Um, some kind of iteration of those things.
Usually corn was key though, Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And
I think I said, uh, tomatoes earlier, I totally meant squash. Um.
Tomatoes are also frequently involved anyway, please continue, Yes, and

(16:34):
together these were hugely important crops, sometimes called the backbone
of North American Native American agriculture. Yeah. The cool thing
about these three crops is that when grown together, they
really support each other, like physically that the corn grows
tall and stiff. The beans use the stocks to climb
and get the sun that they need. Um, both provide

(16:55):
some structure and some shade for the squash. And it's
a grain and a protein and a vege. So you know,
good spread of nutrients. Um. The beans fixed nitrogen in
the soil for the other two plants to use. So smart,
so smart to grow these things together. Yes, yes, And
these crops majorly influenced dishes among the indigenous peoples that
grew them. And when I want to play a large

(17:16):
role in Southern cuisine too. Um. For instance, succotash dish
of corn and beans was most likely introduced to struggling
colonists during the seventeenth century, and the name durives from
a Narraganset word for boiled whole kernels of corn. It
was anglization. Uh how people thought it sounded. It sounded yeah,

(17:37):
yeah yeah. Lima beans were probably like one of the
first foods introduced to these starving colonists um in in
the in the northeast and like Middle colonies. And when
the Spanish arrived in the fifteen hundreds, they took a
lima beans and distributed them in various parts of Europe, Asia,

(17:58):
Africa and the Philippines and the crop took off really
well in in those places. And yes, they were named
after the city the Spanish found them in or one
of them, uh Lima, Yeah, yeah, um. The Spanish also
brought them to California in the seventeen hundreds. Yes, and

(18:19):
I want to read this coat from two thousand sevens
beans a history excellent title, thank you, I Love it
by Ken Alvala. The most important member of the wild
being species group is plu natis, the moon shaped or
the Lima bean. Its name does come from the Peruvian
capital of Lima, even though perversely it is pronounced Lima

(18:43):
in English. It is among the largest of beings, and
for those who were subjected to them in the form
of candy Lima's, the memory of their pasty texture, bitter
metallic aftertaste, and lurid green color can only evoke the
gag reflux. This is a pity, for when fresh or
even dry, they're among the most pleasant and affable of beans.

(19:05):
Hulking in proportions, gentle and sweet y'all shout out to
perversely and affable yes, both of which are are just
holding a tremendous amount of weight up in in that
short paragraph. Yes, I don't come up enough in conversations
of beans about beans. They really don't um gentle and sweet,

(19:31):
lowerid green color. I love it, so I love it.
In George Washington wrote this to the gardener at Mount
Vernon undercover. With this letter, you will receive some lima
beans which Mrs Washington desires may be given to the gardener.
I believe I read Thomas Jefferson was into them too.

(19:53):
He seems like he was into everything he was. He
was uh. The Burpie Seed Company their stamp on lima
bean history in eight According to their company history at
w Atlee, Burpy and Co. In eight Burpee bought a
farm near Doylestown, Pennsylvania called Ford Hook and began transforming

(20:15):
it into what would soon become a world famous plant
development facility. But occasionally he found what he was looking
for surprisingly close to home. Such was the case of
the first bush lima bean, which he found growing in
the garden of a man named Acea Palmer in Chester,
Pennsylvania in eighteen ninety. So I know, I love how
detailed this is already, Yes, yes, yes, back to the quote.

(20:37):
Until then, a lima beans had been strictly climbing plants
and eating poles for support. After cut worms had wiped
out Palmer's bean patch one year, he was stacking his
poles for winter when he noticed one oddle little plant
still flourishing. It was definitely a bush rather than a climber,
only a foot high, and it had three little pods,
each containing a single bean. He planned the seeds the
following season, and two of them grew into low bushes,

(20:58):
bearing a generous yield. He then sold the seeds to
w at Lee Burpie. By seven, the bush lima bean
as we now know it had been developed, and it
was named the ford hook. So exceptional are it's eating
qualities that it has remained a home gardner's favorite to
this day. Lima bean aficionados speak of being ford hooked.

(21:20):
What I know, I know it's a long walk, but
that in I had to put it in there. It
was worth it. It was a a I love. I really,
I genuinely adore this level of detail that someone has
um has afforded to history, because so often, like the

(21:40):
level of detail that we get about history is like
I don't know, I guess a farmer founded and then
stuff happened, um, And I'm like, well that's a thrilling story.
Thank you. No, we've got like the guy's name, where
he lived, Like how happened to the accident? Yeah? Yeah,
I feel like I could like go to these places
and like if I ask around long and if they'll

(22:00):
be like, oh, yeah, the old chest A house. Just
go down State Route and you know, like and yeah,
I find it. Um. But b I, I really hope
you understand that I am. Every time you bring up
lima beans from now on, I'm gonna be like, you're
so ford hooked, Danny. I hope you introduced me to
people as like, oh, she's a real Lima being aficionado.

(22:22):
She's ford hooked, you know what I mean. Please, And
they'll be like Nope, nope, we don't. Maybe I don't
need to talk to this person. Goodbye. You'll miss out,
Oh my excellent lima bean tips and facts. You will

(22:43):
you will imaginary hypothetical person um. In the ninete issue
of Beans Farmer's Bulletin, L. C. Corbett wrote, Lima beans
are of great commercial value, but are not sufficiently appreciated
as a table food because it is not generally known
that in a dry state they can be used in
practically the same manner as our common beings. In reality,

(23:05):
they are richer and more delicate in flavor than the
common beans, and can be used in so many different ways.
The virtues of these types as green beans need only
a passing mention, and their value as an accompaniment of
corn and secotash is well known to every consumer of
canned goods. So we had some people throughout history really

(23:26):
champion yeah yeah for the line of being. The Southern
Seedsman published an article titled A Close Up on the
Ford Hook in two detailing this cultivar, how to grow it,
and really marketing it commercially, notably by Henry A. Drear
and Associated Seed Growers Incorporated. I mentioned that because everyone
else did. It meant nothing to me. But perhaps the

(23:48):
line of being aficionado out there will be like, if
they don't mention Henry A. Drear, then they don't know anything.
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Um. I have to admit I'm
not that that up on my like seed gossip. So yeah,
that's an important name. Great. I do believe that I've
heard the name before, but maybe it was in this

(24:09):
very outline. I don't know. I don't have a memory anymore.
Um So all of this was happening, um because in
the in the nineteen thirties, lima beans became this valuable
cash crop to various farming communities around the United States.
Um and and over the next few decades they would
become a more widely grown and widely served vegetable and

(24:31):
would remain pretty popular through the nineteen sixties. Yes, but
not everyone loved line of beans, not as much as
I did. In fact, pretty much the whole U. S.
Army despised the sea ration ham and limb of beans. Yeah. Yeah, okay,

(24:55):
so from nine until one, uh, and that's when Murray's
came about sea rations. Are sea rats fed millions of U. S.
Soldiers And you can see our m R. E episode
for more about that. Um And also yeah, they were
k rations too. But um so these sea rations they
came in these really recognizable green cans, and they were

(25:19):
by all accounts reviled. Yeah. The vice president of Virginia's
Vietnam War Foundation of Museum, Dick Thompson called them quote
slightly better than shoe leather woof um. And one of
the most by sea rations was yes, Hammon lima beans
nicknamed Hammon Mofo's all, I also saw hammon mothers. Uh

(25:45):
not good in either case. No, not not a positive association.
One soldier who served thirty five years in the army
and retired as a general said of them, it was
an unnatural mix of ingredients. Why not red beans, navy beams,
any beams other than lima bea? If was this mine?

(26:06):
But I I imagine the feeling was there um and
stories go that the soldiers did all kinds of things
to improve the taste, including heating them these sea rats
of ham and limb of beads under vehicle engines. But problem,
as one such story goes, the soldiers forgot to punch

(26:27):
holes in their ashes to release steam, and they started exploding. Yeah,
according to a soldiers serving during this whole fiasco, quote,
a few miles into our road march that can started exploding.
We were denied permission to stop, shut off the engines
and clean up the mess up. In less than five minutes.
We were We were subjected to a stink that lingered

(26:49):
for days, even after repetitive engine cleanings. It smelled something
like ham and lima beans. Oh no, yeah, that's bad
for sure. Cartoon character Bart Simpson hated lamba beans too. Uh.
And yeah, I will say I had a good friend

(27:12):
in middle school who regularly made fun of me that
I like beans, said they were really gross, and I
was gross for liking them. But luckily I love lima
beans enough. It's just like yeah, yeah, like a lama
bean off a duck's back. Yes, as the saying go.
And I will say, I've had Hammond lima beans and

(27:35):
it was delicious. I don't doubt that the sea ration
was gross, sure, but the dish itself, I mean that
is this is one of the great things that the
South does. Is it takes um, something lovely and healthy,
and then it adds a whole bunch of preserved pork
to it and like really gives it a great flavor

(27:57):
um and a good fatty sheen um. So yeah, yeah,
really really tasty um. And yeah, I think that I
think that leading up to the modern conception um that
uh that lima beans are are gross um, had had
to do with this like conflagration of elements um. This

(28:17):
this uh, post war switch from frozen foods being posh too,
canned foods being posh, and also this negative image from
war rations and also line is in particular being a
product that doesn't can all that well. Um. So you
had this perception that lima beans were good, and then

(28:38):
you started getting them canned, and then you were like,
this is not good, and then they went out of
fashion afterwards. So, UM, bring back the lima bean, the
much maligned lima bean, the much maligned out of fashion poe,
how could how could it be? Um? In the U

(28:58):
s Department of Agricultures, growing vest was in the home
garden came with this tip. But two types of lima beans,
called butter beans in the South are grown in home gardens.
Most of the more northerly parts of the United States,
including the northern New England states and the northern parts
of other states along the Canadian border, are not adapted
to the culture of lima beans. In the South, the

(29:18):
most commonly grown lima bean varieties are Jackson, wonder, Anima green,
Henderson bush, Stiva pole. In the north, thorough green, Dixie, butterpea,
and Thaxter are popular small seated bush varieties. Ford hook
two four two is the most popular mid season large
thick seeded bush Lama bean ford hooked to two. There

(29:39):
you go, there you go and the U. S D.
A Like, I found a really excellent resource from them,
and just like it showed that they had a long
history of promoting lima bean growth and how best to
grow them and also experimenting with different strains, and they
were very very thorough. Yeah. Yeah, Well you know, any
any bean um uh that that you growth is in

(30:00):
this particular pocket of the Fabassier family is going to
be able to fix nitrogen in the soil, which is
such a useful thing to not wearing out the soil
in your garden and so um, because plants need nitrogen
to grow, but they can't get it from the air, uh,
and so they have to get it um some other way.
So if a plant can fix them in the soil, forum,

(30:21):
that's great. Uh. That that is an extremely vague explanation
of the nitrogen cycle, um, but you appreciate it. Thank you, Annie. UM.
I think I did a brain Stuff episode about that
semi recently. Um. You can, y'all are smart humans. You
can find out more if you want to um meat. Meanwhile,
in three the aforementioned West Cape May, New Jersey, hosted

(30:46):
their first lima bean festival. From an article in the
Baltimore Sun that October occasion when the town crowns a
lama bean queen dances to a lima bean polka, hold
lima contests, eating, tossing, cooking, and sir is a fine
bean cuisine. Oh, there's so many things to love about
that quote there, Jenny, I was like trying to put

(31:08):
it into my own words, and then I was like,
why would I do that? These words are perfect, These
are the perfect words fine bean cuisine. I've got to
know more about the tossing to the tossing of the
lima beads right like a water balloon situation, and and
the specifics of the lima bean polka, like what like

(31:30):
what makes this polka different from all other pocas? Yes, answers,
we need answers. Oh my goodness, I'm being queen listeners.
If you can help us out, Oh my heck, please
fill us in sounds amazing, ah and um and yeah

(31:56):
that's ah. That's kind of what we have to say
about lima beans to day. I was saying to Annie
you before before we started recording, um, that that this
is one of those topics where the nomenclature makes it
kind of really difficult to do reading because there are
just so many different around the world, so many different
names for this one product, um and so many different
varietals that have been developed over the past few centuries

(32:19):
and um and in cultures and ways of eating them
and so uh so some things are pretty straightforward. You
can you can find a breadth of information with a
very few search terms and others. I was just like,
I have to go record. I can't open any more tabs. UM. So,

(32:42):
so this is what we have for you today about
lima beans. Yes, and please fill us in if you
are from a place or region where they call him
something different. We missed something, yeah, please please please please.
There there's this one. There's this one tidbit that I
couldn't follow up on um about how there was this

(33:04):
like big rush of um lima being export from California
to Japan at one point, maybe in like the seventies
or eighties, when when the local Japanese crops of like
a zuki beans fell through and they needed something to
make sweet bean paste for like holiday desserts. UM. And

(33:29):
oh okay, yeah, yes, well now I'm interested in that too.
All right, well, lima bean, you win this round. But
we do have some listener mail for you. We do,
but first we've got one more quick break for a
word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,

(34:00):
thank you, and we're back with that was another Seinfeld
reference that I can't explain. But it's kind of like
an a food airplane, you know, for you. Yeah, I
would love if someone out there is also as for

(34:23):
some reason, your brain is held onto this Seinfeld stuff
as much as mine has. And you know exactly what
I'm doing. Oh my gosh, Um, Sheldon wrote. Maybe it's
nothing new, maybe it's everywhere, but I only see it
here because I'm here. Here in Quebec, they make a

(34:44):
lot of cedre de glass um ice cider in English,
done the same way ice wine is made. Frozen apples
are crushed, then the concentrated juice is fermented. And yes,
I wanted to thank you Sheldon for bring this up
because a lot of people who originally suggested ice wine
and suggested it like along with cider, because there are

(35:05):
a lot of similarities. Yeah. Yeah, and that that is
a product that I'm pretty sure I have not had.
And it sounds so cool, no pun intended, And I
uh and I really yeah, future future episode for sure. Yes, yes,
I don't think I've ever had it either, but I
would like to try. We really, we really, we really

(35:30):
need to go to Canada, and if we have to,
we have to everyone everyone stays safe now so that
we can go to Canada and eat food. Please please, okay,
all right, um, Matthew wrote, I'm listening to the end

(35:50):
of your wonderful corn bread episode, and I use the
present tense because I have just paused it to write this.
When I heard you both say you didn't know what
Taylor Ham was, I actually gasped. Taylor Ham and park
Roll are two divisive names for the same product. It
is a kind of sausage that comes from somewhere in
New Jersey, and it's absolutely delicious. I'm not a New

(36:12):
Jersey native. I've never lived there, and frankly, I've spent
more time on the Turnpike than any other part of
the state. My wife's best friend grew up there and
introduced her to Taylor Ham, and she me, when you
get one, and I encourage you to do so, you
want to slice it into roughly one quarter in drowns
and pan fry them until they split it needs no

(36:32):
dressing up. It's salty and spicy and savory, and now
I want one. Amusingly, it would pair very nicely with
corn bread. Oh good. Wow. Also, I'm a huge fan
of how many people have written in about the Taylor
Ham pork roll and we haven't done an episode on it,

(36:52):
but we've mentioned it in a listener male, and I've
got to say we've probably gotten like ten follow up
questions like points debates already. Be cool? All right, all right,
maybe maybe this calls for our first like um like
episode slash listener mail. Yeah, yeah, like standard slash listener mail,

(37:18):
like where you know, like we go into the thing,
but then like half of the heck and episode is
y'all's letters about this one particular product that apparently people
are really really into. Um. I love that. I love y'all.
Food is so cool, it's hilarious. I'm such a big
fan of of how strong opinions people have about these

(37:43):
these food products. It's it's a it's a source of
just unending passion. Um. And that's wonderful, it is. Yes, Well,
thanks to you both of those listeners whore writing in.
If you would like to write to us, we would
love to hear from you. Our email is Hello at
savor pod dot com. We're also on social media. You

(38:04):
can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at savor
pod and we do hope to hear from you. Savor
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
my heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Thanks as always to our superproducers Dylan Fagin and Andrew Howard.
Thanks to you for listening, and we hope that lots
more good things are coming your way.