If you’re from Pemberville, you know about snipple beans

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LEMOYNE – Purchasing her own snippler made making Snipple Bean Soup a year-round option for Linda Dunmyer.

The idea of a snipple beans came from Germany as a method of storage through the winter.

Dunmyer is third-generation German but had never heard of snipple beans.

“I was in a German family, but I never knew about it,” she said.

(The word snipple is derived from the German word “schnippelen,” which means to shred, snip or cut up.)

Dunmyer has been making the soup for 13 years, after purchasing her own snippler.

“This is one of those soups, you either like it or you don’t. It isn’t one that grows on you,” she said.

Dunmyer doesn’t grow her own green beans. Instead, a friend found a man in Delta where they buy by the bushel.

She recalled canning 40 quarts from two bushels of beans. It took them nine hours.

Husband Ron turned the snippler the entire time.

Dunmyer said this is her own “dump” recipe, although the original came from a friend.

Rather than soak and cook Navy beans, she uses canned Randall Northern Beans, unrinsed.

Ron also peels the russet potatoes.

The original recipe didn’t call for whole peppercorns, but Ron likes the flavor they add to the soup.

“So, we always have at least a tablespoon in the soup,” Dunmyer said.

If you don’t want to experience the heat that comes with biting down on a peppercorn, leave them out.

Ron likes that the soup tastes better the next day.

“It’s really good,” said Ron.

The snipple beans are different from French-cut beans in that they ferment, Dunmyer said.

French beans also are longer than snipple beans, which are about 1 inch in length.

The women’s guild at Pemberville United Methodist Church sells the canned snipple beans and soup at the village’s Harvest Gathering Artist Fair in October.

Dunmyer said she used to buy the quart beans from the church, until she purchased her own snippler from an online seller.

You can make snipple bean soup the easy way and use French green beans and sauerkraut. That can be made in a day’s time but has quite a bit of salt added, she said.

When the snipple beans come out of the jar, they have to be rinsed really good.

“They are that salty,” she said.

The soup tastes a lot like ham and bean soup, but with the added tang from the peppercorns and the texture from the snipple beans and potatoes.

Dunmyer, a Pemberville native, taught grades 1-7 at Eastwood Local Schools for 30 years. She retired in 1998.

She was a founding member of the Quilting Eagles in 1999, and members gather at her home every Tuesday except during August. Those meeting days are days that Ron is well fed.

“I wouldn’t cook unless we needed it to survive,” Dunmyer said.

She said she cooks a lot of soup, including chicken noodle and beef barley. She also does spaghetti and taco salads. Ron said he never had a slow cooker until he started dating Linda. He works the grill outside.

The couple started dating in junior high and have been married for 56 years.

Dunmyer said she does not do much baking, because she will eat it all.

Her mom expected her to be a good student rather than help in the kitchen, Dunmyer said.

She did not learn to cook until after she graduated from Bowling Green State University.

The couple’ first apartment was on Wallace Avenue in Bowling Green. They were going to have spaghetti for the first meal, but the water never boiled, the hamburger was little rocks, and the sauce was gone.

“You’ve come a long way since that first meal,” Ron said to his wife.

Snipple Bean Soup

Ingredients

1 ham hock

3 cups ham cubes

3 cups chunked potatoes

1 large jar Randall Northern Beans

1 quart snipple beans, liquid drained and rinsed

1 tablespoon peppercorns

Directions

Put all ingredients into a soup pot and cover completely with water. Cook until potatoes are done. Turn heat down and simmer all day.

For the best taste, refrigerate overnight and reheat on low heat the next day.

Remove ham hock and serve.

How to snipple beans

Snip off both ends of the green bean and feed it into a snippler, which slices the beans at a slant. Put a layer of snippled beans into a crock. Shake on 1/2 cup kosher salt and cover with water. Repeat these layers until all beans are snippled.

Place crock in a cool place, cover with cheesecloth, and allow beans to ferment, usually 4-6 weeks. Skim off the “gunk” frequently.

Rinse beans thoroughly, place in hot sterilized canning jars and seal.

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