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Alsace
In the cellars of Alsace Bossue, a stoneware pot and a pressing stone: the secret of a bean turned sour, as old as choucroute yet kept deep within families.
Fermented vegetable from Alsace.
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Süeri Bohne — green beans in brine, or salted green beans — is a rustic and traditional culinary speciality of Alsatian cuisine, originating in Alsace Bossue. Its name comes from the Alsatian süeri (fermented, sour) and bohne (bean), modelled on the German saure Bohnen.
Preserving vegetables in salt through lacto-fermentation — the same technique as for choucroute — is an ancestral practice inherited from Gallic, ancient and medieval cuisines, applied here to fresh green beans from the kitchen garden, which can thus be kept for an entire year in a cellar inside a stoneware vessel sealed as tightly as possible.
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Published in the Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire d'Alsace Bossue (no. 66, 2012), the recipe for Süeri Bohne provided by Irène Oury was passed down to her by her husband's grandmother. It describes a large cylindrical Betschdorf stoneware pot, filled with giant green beans — Stangebohne — cut into thin strips and arranged in alternating layers with coarse salt and a little caster sugar, the whole pressed beneath a wooden lid weighted with a large stone and left to ferment for five to six weeks in the cellar.
A strong odour is released when opening the pot during regular skimming — an expected sign of fermentation, which the recipe itself warns should come as no surprise.
Appearance
Long, thin strips of green beans, cut before being placed in brine.
Aroma
Marked by a pronounced note of fermentation upon opening the pot, which softens after prolonged washing in cold then hot water, before cooking.
Taste
Tangy — the very meaning of the Alsatian name süeri (fermented, sour) — inherited from a lacto-fermentation that Wikipedia compares directly to that of choucroute d'Alsace.
the giant green beans (Stangebohne) are cut into thin strips.
one hour over low heat in water, followed by rinsing.
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Like choucroute d'Alsace, Süeri Bohne is eaten hot, as a main course, alongside potatoes and Alsatian salted or smoked meats. Irène Oury's family recipe suggests sweating it over a bed of shallots with a knob of butter, then leaving it to simmer gently for a long time with a smoked pork cheek (Kinnbacke).
Süeri Bohne holds no official quality mark (PDO (AOP), AOC, PGI (IGP), TSG (STG), Label Rouge or Organic): it is a domestic and artisanal preparation, handed down within the families of Alsace Bossue, which none of the sources consulted links to any ongoing or completed recognition process.
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