Seasoned Lima Beans

When I was a kid, I hated lima beans. I had only ever had them out of a can, and they were always horrible: starchy, squishy, with a skin that would pop off and gag me when I was trying desperately to choke them down, and to top it all off they tasted as metallic as the can they were packed in.  Truly, I can totally understand why someone would say they hate lima beans.

These days, I like lima beans just fine as long as they are either fresh or frozen and cooked so that they haven't been rendered by overcooking into something the consistency of a grasshopper's gutbag.  But I still loathe canned lima beans.

When I saw a can of Margaret Holmes Seasoned Medium Green Lima Beans at Big Lots I inexplicably decided to give them a try.  Maybe it was the awkwardly-worded label. "Medium Green Lima Beans." Did that mean they were medium-sized lima beans which were green in color? Or maybe it meant that they were colored "medium green?" I seem to remember my dad having a Country Squire station wagon with wood grain sides which came from the factory a pretty horrible shade of "medium green" (Ford called it "Lime Gold." Whatever.)

Anyway, I checked the ingredients on the can and it looked kind of promising: onions, spices, salt, a little sugar, some smoke flavoring, some chicken fat...  Chicken fat? Really?  Okay, I was on board.

So this is your fair warning:  If you already hate canned lima beans, don't bother with these. They're still starchy, squishy, and the skins pop off when you're chewing (though I'm a lot better at controlling my gag reflex than I was when I was five years old.) And they still have that nasty metallic flavor.  The best I can say about them is the broth they were in tasted pretty good. I bet if I cooked some fresh or frozen lima beans in a duplicate of that pot likker, they'd be mighty fine.