Yes, it’s Thanksgiving Week food fans (our favorite food week of the year), and to kick it off, we at ELV thought we’d give you the recipe we’ve been touting on KNPR since 1999. We’re posting it early this year to give you plenty of time to study it, shop for it, practice it (for the full ten minutes it takes to make the entire dish), and add it to your regular Thanksgiving repertoire.

GRANDMA SCHROADER’S SOUR BEANS:

The Actual, Authentic Straight-From-The-Fifties Recipe

2 cans green beans
1/4 lb. Bacon

Fry and crumble bacon

Bring to a boil:
1/4 cup vinegar
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
chopped onion

pour over green beans
garnish with bacon

ELV’s MODERN VERSION:

Fry and crumble a pound of bacon – which is more than you’ll need, but half of it will have miraculously disappeared before you use it as a garnish.

Cook and drain one 10oz. package of French Cut Green Beans and put them in a nice serving bowl. (this takes about five minutes)

While the beans are steaming or microwaving, bring to a boil 1/2 cup vinegar (any kind will do), 1/2 cup sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt and one chopped onion (chopped anyway you like your chopped onions to look).

No here’s the hard part so pay attention: after the sugar/vinegar/onion mixture has come to a full boil, pour the entire mixture over the beans and garnish with as much crumbled bacon as your cardiologist allows.

Serve hot, cold or any temperature in between. These beans co-exist wonderfully with any Thanksgiving dinner, and taste even better the next day. I promise – if you serve them once, you’ll serve them every year.

MICHAEL POLLAN’S ULTRA-MODERN, LOCAVORE VERSION

Grow your own beans, cure your own bacon, harvest your own onions, ferment your own vinegar and process your own sugar cane. Cook. Combine.