Succotash

Succotash is a North American vegetable dish consisting primarily of sweet corn with lima beans or other shell beans. The name ''succotash'' is derived from the Narragansett word , which means "broken corn kernels". Other ingredients may be added, such as onions, potatoes, turnips, tomatoes, bell peppers, corned beef, salt pork, or okra. Combining a grain with a legume provides a dish that is high in all essential amino acids.

History

Succotash has a long history. It is believed to have been an invention of indigenous peoples in what is now known as New England, though English soldier and explorer Jonathan Carver attributed it to numerous tribes of eastern North America:

One dish however, which answers nearly the same purpose as bread, is in use among the Ottagaumies, the Saukies, and the more eastern nations, where Indian corn grows, which is not only much esteemed by them, but it is reckoned extremely palatable by all the Europeans who enter their dominions. This is composed of their unripe corn as before described, and beans in the same state, boiled together with bears flesh, the fat of which moistens the pulse, and renders it beyond comparison delicious. They call this food Succatosh.

British colonists adapted the dish as a stew in the 17th century. Composed of ingredients unknown in Europe at the time, it gradually became a standard meal in the cuisine of New England and is a traditional dish of many Thanksgiving celebrations in the region, as well as in Pennsylvania and other states.

Because of the relatively inexpensive and more readily available ingredients, the dish was popular during the Great Depression in the United States. It was sometimes cooked in a casserole form, often with a light pie crust on top as in a traditional pot pie.

After the abolition of slavery in the United States, freed slaves in the American South returned to Africa and introduced the dish to the region.

Preparation

Sweet corn (a form of maize), American beans, tomatoes, and peppers (all New World foods) are the usual ingredients.

Catherine Beecher's 19th-century recipe includes beans boiled with corn cobs from which the kernels have been removed. The kernels are added later, after the beans have boiled for several hours. The corn cobs are removed and the finished stew, in proportions of two parts corn to one part beans, is thickened with flour.

Henry Ward Beecher's recipe, published in an 1846 issue of ''Western Farmer and Gardner'', adds salt pork, which he says is "an essential part of the affair."

In some parts of the American South, any mixture of vegetables prepared with lima beans and topped with lard or butter is considered succotash.

In popular culture

* Sylvester the Cat's trademark exclamation is "Thufferin' thuccotash!" Daffy Duck has also been known to use the line on occasion.
* Professional wrestler Roman Reigns infamously used the phrase "suffering succotash" during a promo on a 2015 episode of SmackDown.
* The Dee-Lite song "Groove is in the Heart" contains the line "My supper dish, my succotash wish"

See also

* ''A Key into the Language of America''
* List of legume dishes
* List of maize dishes
* List of regional dishes of the United States
* Umngqusho, a similar dish from Southern Africa

References

Further reading

*

External links

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Narragansett tribe
Native American cuisine
Legume dishes
Dishes featuring sweet corn
National dishes
Okra dishes
Cuisine of the Thirteen Colonies
Vegetarian cuisine
Culture of Equatorial Guinea
Thanksgiving food
American vegetable dishes
Sylvester the Cat
Daffy Duck