Grandma Duers' North Carolina Lima bean Soup

When I was home for winter break, I believe it was in 1984 and it was my junior year at Syracuse; I had a bizarre food encounter at my grandma Duer’s house in Ossining, New York. Grandma Duers was a native of Windsor, North Carolina migrating to New York around the 1930s to work as a domestic for a white family in Ossining named the Brants. When I entered her Snowden place Senior Citizen apartment, I smelt this wonderful aroma. I said, “wow grandma, what’s that?” With a look of pride on her face she said, “It’s soup, do you want some?" I said yes and sat down to a large bowl of lima Bean soup. Grandma seasoned the limas to perfection with them sitting in an almost gravy like soup with some seasoned meat some of it the meat being crunchy bits. After enjoying a couple of spoons full, I asked her what was in it and what kind of meat did she use to season it. “Pig’s ears and pig snot” she replied with a smell. I was shocked because I had never eaten such food before and because grandma had such bad case of hypertension that her doctor banished pork form her diet. When she did sneak it, her blood pressure went through the roof often causing her hands to swell and ache, dizziness, and sometimes even requiring that she be hospitalized. As a southerner, grandma grew up eating food seasoned with pork and it was so hard for her to restrain from eating it. She died some sixteen years ago at age 90. Her house was the meeting place four my mom's side of the family and she always feed you when you stopped in. Here is an interpretation of Grandma’s soup:

Grandma Duers' North Carolina Lima bean Soup (with vegan translation):

1 chopped onion
1 chopped carrot
½ cup of fresh chopped green pepper
½ cup of fresh chopped red pepper
Pinch of sea salt
Black pepper to taste
2 chopped gloves of garlic
4 medium chopped red potatoes
4 cubes of vegetarian vegetable bouillon
pinch of dried thyme, to taste
pinch cumin, to taste
4 cups of uncooked lima beans (soak them in water over night)
Teaspoon of liquid smoke or smoked paprika powder
2 Old bay leaves
4 pieces of cooked and diced smoked vegetarian bacon (or smoked turkey bacon)
About 10 cups of water.

Method:
combine ingredients and cook in a crock in a crackpot on high for about 4 hours or until the lima’s are silky soft. You can also slow cook it on the back of your stove in a soup pot. The soup is even better with a wedge of hot corn bread for sopping the gravy. Looks in the blog archives for stories on corn bread with recipes.