Boston Baked Beans
I bet if I were to take a poll right now and ask what
major event is happening in Boston this month, most of you would say the
Democratic National Convention. And you would be right. But Let It Be Known:
July is also National Baked Beans Month, and Boston ain’t called Beantown
for nothing. While news reporters might insist that Bostonians are fighting
traffic in a desperate attempt to spot politicians and celebrities, we know the
truth. They just want to get home to mind the beans. It matters little that
outside it is 85 degrees and 90 percent humidity; they are obsessively sweating
over their bean pots, adding a dollop of molasses here and a pinch of dry
mustard there, wringing their hands as the hours tick by and the kitchen
temperature rises, all in an effort to produce authentic Boston Baked Beans.
It’s true that Boston is nicknamed
Beantown because of the colonists’ overwhelming affinity for slow-cooking
beans in molasses (yet another practice picked up from the natives). Molasses,
however, was not traded primarily as a commodity for this tasty dish. I know, I
know, it’s hard to believe that baked beans did not drive the global
economic market of the day, but the fact remains that molasses was actually a
key ingredient in quite another venture: the triangular trade. Molasses was
used to make rum, which was traded in West Africa for slaves. Africans were
shipped to the West Indies where they worked harvesting sugar cane. Sugar Cane
was shipped to Boston to be made into molasses. And so on. Colonial Boston was
awash in molasses, and Boston Baked Beans became a serendipitous by-product of
its otherwise sinister industry.
Why
anyone would choose the hottest, stickiest month of the year to pay homage to
baked beans (a dish that smacks of winter and requires up to eight hours of
baking!)
is beyond me. Personally, I think January should be National Baked Beans
Month. It was January 15, 1919, after all, when a 50 foot high storage tank of
molasses burst open and sent a tidal wave of over 2 million gallons of the stuff
through the streets of Boston at over 30 miles per hour. (Molasses has never
moved so fast since.) Houses, buildings and even parts of the elevated train
were crushed in its gooey path. Twenty-one people died, and over 150 were
injured. It took 6 months to clean up the mess and cost the city millions of
dollars. Seems as good an event as any to commemorate baked beans.
Some day I’ll take this matter up
with the powers that be. Until then, I could think of no better way to
celebrate the union of National Baked Bean Month and the Boston DNC than by
making some baked beans of my own. During my lunch hour, I made a quick run to
the grocery store to pick up some essentials, got home and laid all the
ingredients out on the counter:
•
•
•
Grandma’s Molasses, which is unsulphured
“first” molasses. This means that it is the
product
•
• of the first concentration of pure juice
from sun-ripened sugar cane, no sulfur added. The
more
•
• times you boil sugar cane down, the more of
the natural sweetness is removed until you end
up
•
• with black-strap, which is bitter and
thick.
•
•
•
Brown Sugar, for good
measure.
•
•
•
Coleman’s Dry English Mustard. That ancient
yellow tin lurking at the back of the spice cabinet.
•
• The stuff is so potent that one little tin
lasts for decades. I bought my tin yesterday, and I
expect
•
• never to have to buy another. How do those
guys stay in business?
•
•
•
Salt pork, which looks like a slab of unsliced
bacon. It’s cured with salt instead of being
smoked,
•
• so it adds incredible flavor to slow-cooked
dishes.
•
•
•
Onions. Yellow.
•
•
•
Beans. I didn’t use Boston’s official
dried navy bean. I simply didn’t have time, however
leniently
•
• I wanted to judge my lunch hour. I picked
up a can of small white beans and a can of pinto
beans
•
• and called it a
day.
I cubed the salt pork, quartered the
onions, threw everything into the crock-pot on high, and went back to
work.
Four hours later it was looking
kind of anemic. The pork clearly was not cooked, the onions still held their
shape and there was way too much liquid. I decided it needed more heat and
stuck it in the oven. Good thing too, because in the oven it stayed for a good
3 or 4 hours more. I took it out every once in a while to stir it and mark its
progress. The 350 degree heat was working - especially after I removed the lid
of the crock pot (which wasn’t supposed to be in there anyway. Oops).
The liquid stared to thicken into a deep brown rich syrup. The onions soon
melted into the background and the pork, once cooked through, could be broken
into shards with the slightest pressure. Also - the kitchen, though hot as an
oven itself, smelled fantastic.
We had
Mark over for dinner and some healthy political debate. The beans were velvety
and homey and delish. Along with them, we had beer-braised Boston brats, which
had been toasted on the grill and topped with soft onions and mustard. And to
drink? Sam Adams Boston Lager, of course. I can’t be sure about this,
but I wondered whether our Bostonian fare had any effect on the discussion. The
more we ate the farther left the conversation leaned. By the time John Kerry
took the stage, we were steeped in Boston tradition from the inside out. I felt
a certain kinship for the man and I wondered what he had had for
dinner.
Posted: Fri - July 30, 2004 at 12:44 PM