Butterbeans and Sieva Beans

Butterbeans and Sieva beans are one and the same thing—a native, modestly sized lima bean that flourished in the South and became a favorite garden vegetable, whether freshly shelled or dried and reconstituted. First known by settlers as a Sieva (pronounced “sivvy”) bean, after the Sewee Indians of eastern South Carolina, or as the “Carolina bean,” some southerners began calling it the butterbean in the 1860s because its cooked consistency was so creamy. There were two popular forms of the bean: a whitish green one and a reddish speckled one, both native.