I grew up in Iowa, and they are the pork capital of the country. That’s what they do with all that corn – feed it to the hogs. My father is German, and the Germans must eat a lot of pork, too, because my father loves it. Pickled pig’s feet were always a favorite. All kinds of sausage, pork chops, ham and bacon showed up on the menu at home.

I bought fresh green beans at the farmer’s market yesterday and the first thing I thought of doing with them was to make my father’s green beans and bacon.

Dad started with about a half pound of bacon ends. (These are the scraps left over after they put the neat little slices into the Oscar Mayer package.)(I was married before I knew bacon came in slices.) My Dad cooked the bacon in a big skillet until not quite crisp, and poured off some of the fat into the jar on the stove. (This jar of pork fat was kept and used to season other vegetables and to fry eggs.) A chopped onion or two was thrown into the hot bacon/fat mixture in the skillet, followed by a bunch of cooked green beans, a little salt and a lot of black pepper. The whole mess was cooked down until the onions were browned and the green beans were almost falling apart. I’ll tell you, that is some good eating. Now we all know that pork fat is not a health food, but don’t tell that to my 96 year old Dad.

I decided to modify my Dad’s recipe a little to make it a tad healthier for me. I cooked two slices of all natural, no nitrates, no antibiotics, smoked bacon. Once the bacon was crisp, I poured out the fat and cleaned the pan. I used a tablespoon of olive oil to cook down an onion and a red bell pepper. The bell pepper is my own addition. I like them and they’re colorful. While they were cooking slowly, I cut my green beans into a pot of boiling water and after 20 minutes used a skimmer to add the green beans to the onion & pepper. I tossed in some minced garlic, too, just because, and ground in a lot of black pepper. I can’t remember whether my Dad put garlic in his beans or not, but I don’t think he’d mind. At this point I added back a tablespoon of the bacon fat and the bacon, chopped up small. Then I cooked and stirred until the beans were totally soft and coated with the bacon fat. You can’t rush these green beans. Just be sure to keep the flame low under the pan so they don’t burn. I’m not going to pretend this is diet food, but I did the recipe calculator and for ½ a cup it’s only 112 calories and 7 grams of fat.

My husband won’t eat them. He doesn’t like green beans. I had to put the leftovers in the refrigerator as soon as I’d measured out my serving so I didn’t eat the whole pan full myself. I can enjoy them all week.

Here is a poem about husbands and food. It’s by Leo Dangel.

After Forty Years of Marriage, She Tries
a New Recipe for Hamburger Hot Dish


“How did you like it?” she asked.

“It’s all right,” he said.

“This is the third time I cooked
it this way. Why can’t you
ever say if you like something?”

“Well if I didn’t like it. I
wouldn’t eat it,” he said.

“You never can say anything
I cook tastes good.”

“I don’t know why all the time
you think I have to say it’s good.
I eat it, don’t I?”

“I don’t think you have to say
all the time it’s good, but once
in a while you could say
you like it.”

“It’s all right,” he said.

For more poems by Leo Dangel, check out the Writer's Almanac, one of my favorite sources for poetry.

writersalmanac.publicrad
io.org/author.php?auth_id=
1577