Breaking Bread...and Beans

This past Thursday marked the 237th anniversary of our nation's founding. Americans from coast to coast celebrated with thunderous fireworks, patriotic melodies, and gluttonous cookouts.  Many inches of rain falling on south central Kentucky added a particularly sloshy feel to our week's activities. Our grills may have been dampened, but our spirits were not. Both sides of our family still gathered for belt-loosening cook-ins complete with mountains of potato salad and rivers of sweet tea.  There was much story-telling, many good laughs, and lots of family catch-up...a perfect holiday if you ask me.  Surprisingly, of all the meals, traditions, and visiting this week, it was another communal activity -- one significantly less detrimental to the waist-line -- that lingered in my mind as I sat to write this week's post.  It was the ritual of breaking green beans.



I like to hear the story about my maternal great-grandmothers -- an Italian immigrant and a Russian immigrant.  Both lived in upstate New York and neither of them spoke English well.  My mother says that when she was a young girl, they would sit on the porch together at my Italian great-grandmother's farm, break beans, and "talk" the whole time.  How and About What, nobody knows. That, my friends, is the beauty of breaking beans.

Let's face it, breaking beans is monotonous work.  It doesn't engage the brain in feats of problem-solving or ripple the muscles with sweaty triumph.  It's menial, repetitious, and (dare I say) boring.  On the other hand, it's one of many activities (now frighteningly scarce) that combines cultural tradition, a slower existence, relationship-building, productivity, and self-sufficiency.  And for that, I can whole-heartedly appreciate and enjoy it.  In a world crazed by efficiency and technological advancement, my type-A personality actually relishes the notion that there are a few tasks still out there that are slow by nature, where it's okay to be fairly mindless, and chatting with someone while working is actually beneficial.  Coming from someone who typically prefers quiet and focused work, I realize there are a lot of jobs where conversation is distracting and inefficient.  However, in the not too distant past, our culture had a lot of community/family time inherently associated with its productivity.  Labor was just as responsible for maintaining relationships as recreational activity or festive gatherings.

It's obvious that I'm all about the breaking bread of together -- few things hold more value to me than a shared meal -- but these days I'm thankful for the breaking of beans, too.  We harvest every few days. With our buckets full, we head to the porch.  Minutes after ditching our shoes (if we're wearing any to begin with), we set the stage with our usual props and chairs.  Then we sit to break beans together.  One picking it was just the two of us engaged in a conversation about child development and parenting styles.  Another time it was Weldon's parents along with us sharing highlights from their recent vacation.  No matter the exact players or the topic, we talk and we work until the last bean is snapped into knuckle-length bits and tossed into the bowl with the mound of others.  The rhythm of our work and the conversation makes easy rounds in our little circle.  The time and the task pass quickly.  Before we know it, the yield is sent to the kitchen to be canned and we make a tentative schedule for the next session. Then off we charge to more critical-thinking, sweat-producing, high-energy tasks on the To Do lists.

Summertime is the perfect season for breaking bread -- and beans -- together. Here's hoping you have bountiful opportunities for both!