Pickled Beans - cooking recipe

Ingredients

1 bu. white half runner green beans
plain salt (iodized cannot be used)

Preparation

Wash beans until clean of any dirt or spray that may have been used on them. String and break green beans. The fuller or more mature the beans are, the better for pickling. Wash beans again to make sure they are clean enough to eat. Using a large open pan, cook beans by covering them with water in the pan. Cook until their color changes and they are tender when tested with a fork. Let cool. Drain the water off. Pack into a stone churn in approximately 2-inch layers. On top of each layer, sprinkle heavily with salt, approximately 3 tablespoons of salt per layer of beans. Use all the beans and fill churn as full as possible. Top the beans with a saucer turned upside-down and a clean rock from the creek on top of the saucer to keep it weighted down. Tie a clean cloth around the top of the churn and put a lid or a heavy plate on top of cloth. This protects the brine from gnats, also known as Lewis Grizzard's fruit flies which people in the south inherited.