• 2 lbs. bulk fresh green beans (you can save time by buying frozen green beans, but they won’t taste as good)
• 1 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• water
• very big pot
• 2 slices bacon (optional)

Unlike other fresh peas and beans, green beans do not need to be shelled.  If you compare apples to bananas, you get the idea.  No one in the U.S. hesitates to consume an apple peel, but everyone here peels their banana, eats the inside fruit, and discards the banana peel.

Green bean pods are sort of like apples.  You can eat both the skin the inner contents.  Unlike apples, there is no core to a green bean.

The thing about fresh green beans is that you need to snap them and string them before you cook them.  You can buy them ready to cook in cellophane packages and that is about the best short cut you can use.  If you buy the frozen green beans, nothing you can do to them will make them taste “fresh.”

To buy the best fresh green beans from the bulk bin, you need to bend a sample green bean and try a one-handed “snap” right there in the store.  For a one-handed snap, press your thumb against one side of the green bean and spread your index and middle fingers apart so your thumb can pass between the two fingers if the bean does snap.  You are looking for a fresh, crisp bean that will break cleanly and easily when you try the one-handed snap.  If you try 4 or 5 beans and they all just bend in the middle without snapping at all, the beans are no longer fresh.  Either choose the cellophane package of green beans this week or try another store.

When you get your fresh green beans home, rinse the bulk green beans with running water and drain.  (No need to prepare the cellophane package or frozen packages of green beans, they are ready to cook straight out of the package.)  Place the rinsed beans in a large bowl, select a smaller bowl for the scraps, and sit down to snap the beans on the porch or in front of a TV.  (This is a GREAT job for a guy or a teen.  They can watch TV and snap and string without paying much attention to the beans.)

To snap and string your beans, take one bean in two hands and fold your fists toward each other, breaking the bean across its middle.  If you have tough, older beans, a string will hang off one side of the snapped bean.  Pull it all the way off and discard in the scrap bowl.  Check the other half for a string and pull it off if you can find one.   If there are discolored places or bug-holes in part of either bean half, snap that part off and discard. Finally, look at the ends of the bean halves.  If the tips turn into long skinny strips where the bean pod did not fully mature, snap off those tips and discard.  Your bean halves should contain mature “beans” inside their pods.

The broken pieces can go back in the bowl.  Reach for another whole green bean and repeat.  Keep repeating until all the green beans are snapped and strung.  If your snapper/stringer prefers, they can place the broken beans in a new bowl, but most people don’t have room in their lap for 3 bowls (whole beans, scraps, snapped beans).

To cook your snapped and strung green beans, fill a large soup pot 2/3 or 3/4 full with water (example: 3 quarts water in a 5 quart pot).  Place on the stove top burner and turn heat to high.  When the water is boiling, add the snapped beans, salt, pepper and sugar.  Return to a boil, and then reduce heat to low (3 on a scale of 0-10).  Simmer 10 minutes, cover and remove from heat.  Leave covered until ready to serve to keep the beans warm.  Drain beans and and place cooked beans in a bowl. Dot with 1 Tablespoon butter and serve immediately.

If you like the taste of bacon, fry 2 strips in a skillet, pour the grease into the green bean water before you bring it to a boil, and break up the bacon slices into bits to serve on top of the bacon after you’ve drained it.  The bacon grease and bits replace the butter.