Cali,.............

My mama always cooked with salt pork or with bacon. I don't care for salt pork, so it's bacon at our house. I would have used bacon in these beans, but we had bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwiches on Saturday night and we had nothing left but the "drippings."

To make beans using bacon, fry the bacon in the pan that you want to make the green beans in. Remove the bacon. Put the beans, seasonings, and water in. When the beans are almost done, crumble the bacon and add it to the pot. The bacon will stay crunchy and the beans will have that delicious hickory smoke flavor.

As for cooking green beans for an hour, it takes that long to get them good and done. I don't care for green beans that have just been blanched.

Good luck with your beans and let me know if you need any more southern cooking recipes!