I grew up eating the green beans my great grandmother raised, which were pinto beans. I don’t care much for the round waxy green beans, like they sell at the grocery store.
But Walden, pinto beans and green beans aren’t the same thing unless you mean you ate not-quite-ripe pinto beans which were therefore green.
Or maybe this is one of those colloquial discrepancies.
Are you referring to beans that are stripped out of the pod, or to string beans?
djm
Oh, I see I have the same question everyone else has. Did the pinto beans look like what I would call string beans or green beans? As emmline says, were they immature pinto beans? Did you eat the pod, as djm says, or just the seeds?
Oh, Walden, I see these people who’ve responded so far are clearly deprived!
Pinto beans, for those who don’t know, grow in a green outer case like all other beans and can be eaten that way too.
I’m shocked people didn’t know that!
These are pinto beans:
http://www.ccmoore.com/images/Pinto%20Beans.jpg
And so are these:
http://users.tcworks.net/~dandacrum/gardens/Strawberry%20pallet.jpg
That’s one strange pinto bean plant there, Cranberry. Could it be the elusive strawberry pinto?
Grandma use to always have strings of pintos still in the hull of course, hanging to dry in a spare room of her house.
As for green beans, my favorite is the half-runner. Can’t beat them fresh out of the garden cooked with a little fat back and served up with sweet corn and tomatos since they are usually ready at the same time. Ummm.
If all I had to eat were the green beans cooked like they do in the northern reaches, forget it. There’s no comparison.
The dry pinto beans are a staple in many people’s diets
and are in all the stores.
But young green pinto beans in the pod are something I
will have to look forward to trying some day.
I don’t know what makes them particularly “strawberry” but I’ve eaten them before…they’re certainly pinto beans.
I would never in my life put cow fat (or pig fat) in them, though. That’s like contamination or something.
Another complication is that green beans that look like string beans very rarely have strings in them these day, at least around here they don’t. There is a green bean rather like a dried Pinto but I forget its name.
That second picture is a strawberry plant, Cran. It looks like you got the wrong link.
Robin
Hmm…I just googled for a picture of a bean bush and that one came up. I know pinto beans grow like that (on a green bush)-- because I’ve picked them (or mabey I’m just crazy and imagined it?)!! 
Oh my heavens. I just clicked it again and looked. I am so retarded. Yes, yes, I pick pinto beans from strawberry plants. I have no idea how I didn’t notice that. LMAO. 
Yes… pinto bean pods… they must be picked very young, but they are very good.
Cran- we always called these “Shelley” beans.
then you have “leather britches” and “greasy beans”…
I love cowfat. Especially the that nice fatty eye you find in a rib-eye steak!!
yummmmmmmmmm!!!
I guess it would go well with pinto beans.
Thanks for the reminder. I have some pinto beans, (as seen in Cran’s first photo), waiting to be cooked. I really like cooking them with hocks but it’s nearly impossible to find hocks around here. I’ve used pig’s feet before but I don’t like them as well as hocks.
Here’s a question I’ve had that maybe someone can answer. Should you, or should you not, add salt to dried pinto beans while they are soaking or cooking?
I put some blackeyed peas in the beef stew last night…it was really good!
Robin
aww..poor fella..
Here’s a question I’ve had that maybe someone can answer. Should you, or should you not, add salt to dried pinto beans while they are soaking or cooking?
Just checked with the “cook”/husband- No to adding salt to the water when you soak them overnight. Yes to when they are cooking. Of course the salted fat back will add some salt to the beans too.
I always took the shortcut with pinto beans- or as they are known around here “soup beans”. I skipped the overnight soak and cooked them in the pressure cooker. The only thing I don’t like about them is “looking” them to pick out the ones that don’t look too good or the little gravels that sometimes end up in the bag with the beans.
Oh and yuck to adding beef fat to anything that it was not originally attached to. (I’m with you Amar on the rib-eye)
Fatty salt cured pork meat though is a great seasoning.