Maybe it's the name. It just sounds like the Native American names from home. Maybe it's that the Brits don't know it, so it's that much more fun to explain it to me. Maybe it's just that it's so American, and I do miss America. Maybe it's that I miss the South, too. Yes, the first Thanksgiving was in New England, but I've only ever eaten succotash at Elmo's Diner. God bless Elmo's.
The thing is, it's practically impossible to get lima beans in Beijing. I think I used cranberry beans the first year. Last year, I found lima-Bean-esque beans, but (like all vegetables in China) they were grown to obscene proportions. I don't want to eat a bean as big as my nose. It ruins the whole bean to cream ratio.
This year, I swore no succotash unless I found limas. And there were no limas to be had.
And then I saw them: canned butter beans. I had a momentary flashback to Harris Teeter in Chapel Hill. I was with my roommate and her family, and her mother was looking for (fresh) butter beans. I had some idea they were like green beans. Obviously, I had no idea what a butter bean was. No, I was told, they were more like lima beans.
So I bought them.
I Googled it tonight, just to make sure. Turns out, when you Google "butter beans" you get told they are "lima beans" (well, with only mild, minor differences). Yes, I cackled like a kitchen witch when I read that. My neighbors must think I'm dancing on the burned bones of a dead baby in my blood-spattered pentagram (which, I'll have you know I had to rely on auto-correct to spell correctly, just in case you think I really have a five-pointed star on my living room floor). But that's just how evil my laugh was.
I mean, come on. I just found lima beans in Beijing. I really am that awesome.
- Do you really care this was posted using BlogPress from my iPad?
Location:Beijing, China
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