A hill of beans

[desperance]

As it happens, I know the song the Siren sang how many beans make five*, but I am on less certain ground when it comes to making baked** beans in America.

It's Memorial Day, and barbecues are traditional; Jeannie is hosting a Wrath of Khaaaanivores afternoon, with movie and fudz; I am baking sesame buns per request. Also I have jointed a chicken and marinated it overnight in yoghurt and tandoori spices, just to see what happens when we chuck that on the grill; also also, I am making beans.

I have sizzled onion and chilli and garlic and the end of my own bacon, and put that in a pot with soaked beans and their soaking water and a tin of tomatoes and smoked paprika and molasses and bay leaves and black pepper and dry mustard. While it-all boils down, I am wondering what I might have forgotten/omitted through ignorance. What else goes into baked beans?


*Bean, bean, bean and a half, half a bean and a bean.

**(actually boiled)

Comments

[movingfinger]

I'm from Yankeeland. We often had baked beans for picnics and funerals. And many weekends, with hot dogs. My family's take on your recipe would be:

Garlic: no
Chili: Good Lord No
Canned tomatoes: no, a few spoonfuls of tomato paste instead (canned, traditionally)*
Brown sugar: well, if you don't have molasses, and it had better be dark brown if you use sugar
Molasses: preferred to all other flavorings
Bean type: Small white navy
Smoked paprika: Sounds too racy
Onion: yes, white or yellow, one
Bacon: well that is fancy, fatback is cheaper, remember to score the fat deeply or cut it in small chunks. Put some in the bottom and some in the top.


*This makes sense to me because you are making baked beans, and the pulpy lumps of tomato flesh and gritty seeds would be unpleasant, texturally, in there.

[movingfinger]

Oh, and mustard (Colman's mustard powder, mixed into the liquid).