Dead Man Gnawing: The Stringless Bean (1884)

This isn't Keeney's brand, but I do love the old-time packaging.

For most of the thousands of years that humans have grown them, beans have had long, fibrous strings running along the pod seam (hence “stringbeans”) and a tough lining between the peas and the pod.  The original bean farmers, native tribes in the Americas, raised beans to shell and discard the pods, not enjoy fresh what we generally know today as green beans.  There are far more fresh, eatable beans than just green beans, of course, but that’s not we’re addressing today.   We’re addressing the origin of those fresh snap beans, a dude named Calvin Keeney. Continue reading