Recipe: How to string, dry, and cook 'leather breeches' (from Foxfire Book)

LEATHER BREECHES BEANS

String tender green beans. Fill a long needle with a long strong thread. Push the needle through the center of the bean, pushing the beans together at the end of the thread, from knot end to needle. Hang up the string by one end in the warm air, but not in direct sunlight. This gives the beans a better flavor. Let them remain hanging until the beans become dry. Store in a bag until ready to use.

(The Foxfire Book, p. 175)

Drying is a simple food preservation technique that requires no special equipment (though one can certainly use a fancy dehydrator), and persisted even after the popularity of home canning (beginning around 1860) and freezing (post-electrification, around the 1920s and 30s). For the Appalachian folks interviewed in the Foxfire books, drying beans, along with pickling and canning, were a way to stretch the harvest all year and provide some variety in a somewhat monotonous diet.

TO COOK LEATHER BREECHES BEANS:
Sometime during the winter take a string of dried green beans down, remove the thread, and drop them in a pot of scalding water. Then add "a good hunk'a meat" (ham, pork, or the like, depending on your taste) and cook all morning.

As Andy Webb said, "Now they's somethin' good ta'eat. I'd rather have them then canned beans."

(The Firefox Book, p. 167)