— Roy L. Cox

Traditionally, when I'm making the Southern-style dishes that usually were loaded up with bacon and lard, I'm going to use mushrooms in their place. A nice, flavorful mushroom is always my first choice. So, shiitake style is always a nice one because it has such a big umami to it. And then I'll add a little bit of paprika to that, salt. If you can find smoked salt, would be fantastic. Otherwise, they make a liquid bottle of liquid smoke, which is fantastic. That'll help with that baconish kind of flavor, which is nice. So the mushroom, and then I'll do a yellow onion or a white onion with that. Paprika, a little bit of liquid smoke, which is sold in grocery stores as a jar. It's basically a technique where you basically get smoke on the top of a metal thing, and then you can scrape that off and then liquefy it, and it makes that smoky kind of flavor, which is pretty cool, too. So, I'll basically use that as the base, and then I'll either add collards to it or the green beans like you're talking about. But it'll help add that kind of Southern flavor that you're looking for in those, too, Roy.