Foods of England - Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce

Baked Beans in Tomato Sauce

Fruit and Vegetables

Dried then reconstituted navy beans (also called pea beans, a variety of Phaseolus vulgar) in rich, slightly sweetened, tomato sauce. Served on toast, as part of a Full Breakfast or as a vegetable accompaniment. Although the receipt almost certainly originates from a Native North American dish, the baked beans served in England are dramatically less sweet and cooked so as to be firmer in texture than the commercial product currently sold in the USA and Canada, where maple syrup is a commonplace ingredient.

‘Punch’ August 1927

Original American Receipt in Hall’s Journal of Health, 1862

BAKED BEANS Few people know the luxury of baked beans simply because few cooks properly prepare them. Beans generally are not cooked half long enough. This is our method. Two quarts of middling sized white beans two pounds salt pork and one spoonful of molasses. Pick the beans over carefully wash and add a gallon of boiling hot soft water let them soak in it over night In the morning put them in fresh water and boil them gently till the skin is very tender and about to break. Take them up dry and put them in your dish stir in your molasses gash the pork and put it down in the dish so as to have the beans cover all but the upper surface turn in boiling water till the top is just covered bake with a steady fire four or five hours. Watch them and add more water from time to time as it dries away. The molasses may be omitted

Canned baked beans in tomato sauce were imported from Canada by HJ Heinz from 1886. Manufacturing in England began in 1928, and their Wigan factory now processes some 1,000 tons per week. Such a staple have they become that, during the Second World War, the Ministry of Food classified them as an ‘essential foodstuff’.

A children’s rhyme goes:
Beans, beans, good for your heart.
The more you eat, the more you fart.
The more you fart, the better you feel.
So eat your beans at every meal.

Tinned Baked Beans were taken on Scott’s Last Expedition

See: Baked Beans – Old Style

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