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Green Beans Go Viral

December 3rd, 2009 · 6 Comments · Posted in Recipes

For maximum flavor, cook green beans to death

For maximum flavor, cook green beans to death

Update: My recipe for braising green beans was tweeted by Chicago Sun Times tech columnist Andy Ihnatko, who has more than 25,000 Twitter followers. His tweet was republished by Sun Times movie critic Roger Ebert, who has nearly 15,000 Twitter fans.

Lesson: Make tasty green beans and people will find you.

Back to the original story: For some reason, my recipe for braising green beans three hours has been getting hundreds of hits in the last two days. I’m not sure how this got started, but if people are that interested in braised green beans, I thought I’d commit a public service and link to the recipe again.

These beans hew to ancient cooking tradition in parts of Europe and the American South. Green beans don’t really come into their own flavor-wise until they’ve been cooked to death. These are seasoned with fennel, tomato, onion and bacon. Quite a winning combination. The recipe was twice named one of America’s best by Houghton-Mifflin.

Can I suggest your favorite iron-skillet corn bread to sop up the juices?

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  • gojeffrey // Dec 3, 2009 at 11:46 am

    Here’s what led me to your green bean recipe. Sounds quite delicious.

    http://twitter.com/Ihnatko/status/6290343891

  • ozrose // Dec 4, 2009 at 4:27 pm

    Andy Ihnatko has 25,000 followers so when he tweets about you you’re bound to get quite a few hits.
    Love your site.
    Thanks.

  • foodperson // Dec 9, 2009 at 4:07 pm

    My guess is that it caught people’s attention because it goes against the dictum not to overcook vegetables and the scorn our mothers’ beans got (even though we loved them) for simmering endlessly with a hunk of bacon or ham and a little bit of onion.

  • Ed Bruske // Dec 9, 2009 at 6:23 pm

    Rock on, Janet. In our house, the green beans were probably the canned variety, with the cream of mushroom soup and the canned fried onions. But we loved it.

  • gojeffrey // Dec 14, 2009 at 12:09 pm

    BTW I tried this recipe on Sunday. They were some of the most flavorful green beans I’ve had. I think these are going on the Christmas dinner menu.

  • Ed Bruske // Dec 14, 2009 at 12:21 pm

    Jeff, glad to hear your beans were a success. I think they are the tastiest beans around, and so easy to make.