While relatively few lima beans are grown in Pennsylvania, only a total of 23 acres, fresh Pennsylvania lima beans are a treat worth looking for at your local farmers' market or roadside farm market. Frozen or canned lima beans are delicious and nutritious as well, but the fresh ones have a distinctive flavor.
According to the Wellness Encyclopedia of Food and Nutrition (University of California at Berkeley), lima beans are named after Lima, Peru, where they have been cultivated for thousands of years. There are two common types of limas grown in the United States – the larger Fordhook or butter bean varieties and the baby lima varieties. Baby limas are a smaller and milder-tasting variety of lima beans, not simply young lima beans.
Limas are available fresh from late summer through early fall. If purchased in the pod, the pods should be tightly closed and budging. If the limas are already shelled, they should be plump and tight-skinned. For the best flavor, the shelled beans should be pale or grass green. Beans that are chalky white will have a starchy flavor similar to dried limas.
Following are two lima bean recipes entered in the 2011 "Simply Delicious, Simply Nutritious" Pennsylvania Vegetable Recipe Contest – one of which was a finalist recipe.
Three Sisters Succotash (A Tribute to the Native Americans)
Serves 8 to 10
1 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups fresh sweet corn
1/2 cup diced sweet onion
1 medium red bell pepper, diced
