I grew up in New Orleans and Lake Charles and was raised on Camellia red beans, every Monday. I raised my kids in Texas on them and am now introducing them to my grandkids. While I can find the red beans most anywhere here in Montgomery/Conroe TX I can not find the Great Northern beans anywhere. I have relatives bring them to me from Lake Charles. PLEASE promote the Great Northern beans to the grocery store buyers in Texas…Kroger, Brookshire Bros., HEB and W-M. Thank you.
Anyone that grew up in New Orleans shares the love for Camellia Brand Red Beans and Rice. It is what we were raised on! My mom used to ask my brother what he wanted for his birthday and he would tell her please cook a pot of red beans. We still love them, and when we smell them cooking, and then eat them, it reminds of us home.
I retired to Virginia and these people not only don’t understand Southern food, they don’t stock any summer peas and beans. I remembered Camellia from living in New Orleans many years ago, looked online, and there they were, alive and doin’ fine. They have been my lifeline to decent food ever since.
A group of Facebook friends from points south of the Mason-Dixon line got to remembering how much they loved “lady peas” and how hard they are to find if you live in Maine as I do. Maine grows all sorts of peas/beans but no lady peas. To help me out a FB friend dug around and found you folks and I have just ordered my first shipment of your lady peas. Will keep you posted once I get them and cook them Can hardly wait to see if this works! thank you so much for helping recover from Lady Pea homesickness.
We lived in Seoul, South Korea and the government MAFRA Ministry of Farming and Rural Affairs sponsored a contest to cook Kimchi with something from your home country. I cooked CamillaBlack Eyed Peas with the Spicey cabbage kimchi and told the luck from the peas and money from the green cabbage story and won first place!! You can’t buy Camilla anything in Korea, but you CAN fill your suitcase with beans when you fly between Houston and Seoul. My kids have called me the Bean Queen for years – now I really feel like I deserve the title. Your beans are Internationally Famous and cooking them in Korea made a foreign country seem more like Home.
I cook a lot of y’all beans
So happy to find Camellia beans! A YouTube video pointed me in your direction. I grew up eating beans every day of the week. Talk about comfort food. Your beans did not disappoint. Today my shipment arrived & I quickly started a pot of pink beans. The smell, or maybe it was the onions, brought me to tears and took me back to my childhood. Who says you can’t go home again? Just put on a pot of Camellia beans, and let the memories flow.
I am 70 years old. I have always hated black eyed peas. They always taste like chalk. Family and friends for years have tried to get me to eat them, with no luck. No matter the recipe, the cook, or anything else, and dish that was primarily black eyed peas always tasted like chalk. I could eat a soup that had a few peas in it, but never anything that was primarily black eyed peas. This changed when I ate some of your black eyed peas! No chalky taste at all! Very tasty peas. Wife used the recipe on the bag and it is delicious! Only your brand from now on, for all our dried peas and beans!
My 94 year old mother grew up in East Texas, 90 miles from Shreveport. My Granny cooked so many Field Peas, Crowder Peas and Lady Cream Peas when I visited her during the summer, I never forgot the taste. Peas with homemade hotwater cornbread, sliced tomatoes and cold refrigerator cucumbers . Having moved to West Texas, I completely lost the peas!. How wonderful to find that someone close to my mother’s old home still has these old memories we can hold in a bag. I, of course, have order every kind and cooked my first batch this weekend! My Mother was so excited. We served field peas with hotwater cornbread, sliced tomatoes, refrigerator cucumbers and pork ribs. Mom says it made her feel like she was back on the old Carlisle farm again. What a great treat. Now, I’m teaching my husband what he missed growing up as a kid! San Saba, Texas folks don’t know anything about Cream Peas! Thank you. Now that I’ve found you, we will be including your peas in many of our meals. P.S. You began in 1923; my Mom was born in 1928!
Every time we would visit the Winn-Dixie in Natchitoches, LA on our way home back to TX., my uncle would fill up his cart with Camelia Beans, all kinds and I asked him why all the beans and he told me they cook just right and thick His mama states he grew up loving beans. Years later I understand well what he was saying..”they cook just right and thick!..my uncle is 70+ and he stills eat beans
I’m 58 and from Mississippi, about 90 miles from New Orleans. I was raised on a farm, and grew up eating Camelia brand beans. It was one of the few things my daddy could cook when my mama was working late. As I became older I took over cooking the beans and Daddy started cooking flapjacks or Jacks to go with them. Daddy would call me on the phone and say “I’ll cook the Jacks”, and I would say, “I’ll cook the beans.” It was a dinner date with my Daddy. I miss him and our meals together, but Camelia brings all the memories back when I cook a pot of Big Lima beans!!
We had gone to the Soul Food Cookoff in Houston last year, and the pastor who runs the cookoff found out we were from Louisiana and knew I liked to cook. He asked if I’d cook this year and the rest is history! The Cookoff is held annually to benefit College Park Cemetery which was started in the 19th century for freed slaves and their descendants, and also to honor the memory of MLK. The event serves a great cause and it really was a lot of fun, with a very eclectic group of people both cooking and attending. I’m a native of New Orleans, so I knew I had to cook red beans and rice using Camellia Beans. My secret recipe beat out the competition and I was granted the Chef’s Choice award and First Place…Nothing beats red beans and rice from a NOLA native!
I grew up on red beans and rice. My mom would make them every Monday. You knew as soon as you got home from school that it would be just deliciousness. The beans were always cooked to perfection , the sausage melted in your mouth. She always served it with rice and cornbread…..ahhhhhhhh Love in a bowl!! I cook it on Monday’s as much as a can but, I must confess I make them on Sundays sometimes.
I am from Dallas, but please don’t hold that against me–I married a cute little swamp critter from New Orleans. It was during one visit to the West Bank that I got to taste her grandmother’s red beans and rice, and I’ve been perfecting this dish every couple months since then to keep her from getting so homesick. I tried one time with store red beans and won’t be making that mistake again. For the last 15 years we have lived in Southern California, so every time we visit home or the in-laws come to visit, we always pack our bags with many pounds of Camellia red beans, some cajun shake and some crab boil. Thank you for keeping the beans consistent all this time! Looking forward to many more pots of “home”.
It’s no secret that I LURVE red beans and rice. But only mine. LOL! I’m far too critical of other people’s red beans and rice so I don’t even try them. I know…bad Mingo…BAD! But my beans are pretty dang delish. If you’ve ever had them… you know this for sure.