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A dish of baked beans over scrambled eggs on toast.

Baked beans is a dish containing beans, sometimes baked but, despite the name, usually stewed, in a sauce^[1]. Most commercial canned baked beans are made from haricot beans, also known as navy beans – a variety of Phaseolus vulgaris – in a sauce. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, a tomato and sugar sauce is most commonly used. They are commonly eaten on toast or as part of a full English breakfast.

In the United States there are multiple styles. Boston baked beans use a sauce prepared with molasses and salt pork, the popularity of which has led to the city being nicknamed "Beantown". Beans in a tomato and brown sugar, sugar or corn syrup sauce are a widely available type throughout the US. Maine and Quebec-style beans often use maple syrup. Canned baked beans are used as a convenience food, shortening cooking times for a meal, or may be eaten straight from the can, in camping or emergency settings, as they are pre-cooked. They are very popular and are often served with chips, waffles and other such goods. Also, they are usually eaten with dinner or lunch.

History[link]

The beans used to make baked beans are all native to North America and were introduced to Italy in 1528 and to France by 1547.^{[citation needed]} Beans, squash and maize were grown together by Native Americans and came to be known as the Three Sisters. The dish of baked beans is commonly described as having a savory-sweet flavor and a brownish or reddish tinted white bean once baked, stewed, canned or otherwise cooked.

According to alternative traditions, sailors brought cassoulet from the south of France or northern France and the Channel Islands where bean stews were popular. Most probably, a number of regional bean recipes coalesced and cross-fertilised in North America and ultimately gave rise to the baked bean culinary tradition familiar today.

While many recipes today are stewed, traditionally beans were slow baked in a ceramic or cast-iron beanpot. There's a tradition in Maine of "bean hole" cooking, which may have originated with the native Penobscot people and was later practiced in logging camps. A fire would be made in a stone-lined pit, allowed to burn down to hot coals and then a pot with eleven ^[2] pounds of seasoned beans would be placed in the ashes, covered over with dirt and left to cook overnight or longer. These beans were a staple of Maine's logging camps, being served at every meal.^[3]

Canned beans, often with pork, were among the first convenience foods. Canned salt pork and beans with stewed tomatoes was supplied to the US Army during the American Civil War in the 1860s.^[4] The U.S. Food and Drug Administration stated in 1996 that "It has for years been recognized by consumers generally that the designation 'beans with pork,' or 'pork and beans' is the common or usual name for an article of commerce that contains very little pork."^[5] This is typically a piece of salt pork to add fat to the dish.

United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland[link]

Beans on toast

In the UK and Ireland, the term baked beans refers almost exclusively to canned beans in a tomato sauce. Many people regard baked beans as an integral part of the modern full English breakfast, including beans on toast. Every day 2.3 million British people eat Heinz Baked Beans, 1 million of those people eat Heinz Baked Beans for their dinner^[6]. As the top selling brand of baked beans, historically the H. J. Heinz Company has become synonymous with them, although the growing popularity of other brands such as Branston Baked Beans, own brands, and HP baked beans (later purchased by Heinz), has reduced this.^[7] Heinz Baked Beans were first sold in the UK in 1886 in the upmarket Fortnum & Mason store in London as an exotic import at a high price.^[8] Although they are now a staple food, and arguably a downmarket one, the store continues the tradition of selling Heinz Beans among its more expensive wares. Up until the Second World War cans of Heinz Baked Beans were produced with a piece of pork - this was removed from the cans due to rationing and never made it back in again.

Baked beans are also considered to be a staple food of students, as they are typically easily heated in a microwave and are very cheap. British supermarkets may sell store brand baked beans for less than thirty pence a tinned can^[9] although some premium organic brands price at 79 pence^[10] Baked beans are a classic example of a loss leader, a product sold by supermarkets for an abnormally low price, often less than cost. Baked beans have recently begun appearing in conjunction with other foods, such as a filler inside sausages^{[citation needed]}, as a sidedish with bacon, eggs and toast as part of a full breakfast, or as a pizza topping.^[11]

UK style baked beans are also popular in Australia and New Zealand.

United States[link]

In the United States, Bush's (Bush Brothers and Company), Van Camp's, B&M (Burnham & Morrill Inc.), Allens, Inc., the H. J. Heinz Company, and the Campbell's Soup Company are well-known producers or brands of packaged baked beans. B&M specializes in Boston-style baked beans often sold in beanpot shaped jars, and canned brown bread, a traditional regional accompaniment to baked beans; whereas Bush and Van Camp produce multiple flavor varieties of canned beans, some styles using cured bacon to add its flavorings to the products.

Three beanpots used for cooking homemade baked beans. The small one is glazed with the letters "Boston Baked Beans"

In the New England region baked beans are flavored either with maple syrup (Northern New England), or with molasses (Boston), and are traditionally cooked with salt pork in a beanpot in a brick oven for six to eight hours.^[12] In the absence of a brick oven, the beans were cooked in a beanpot nestled in a bed of embers placed near the outer edges of a hearth, about a foot away from the fire. Today, baked beans can be made in a slow cooker or in a modern oven using a traditional beanpot, Dutch oven, or casserole dish.

In southern states and along the eastern seaboard of the US, the beans become tangier usually due to the addition of yellow mustard. For example the baked beans of Tennessee based Bush's include mustard in most of their varieties of beans. Ground beef may also become common alongside bacon in the home versions some of these bean styles. They may take on a flavor similar to Cowboy Beans, a home mixed stew, somewhat similar to a chili but made instead with sweet baked beans.

Heinz baked beans became very successful as an export to the UK, where canned baked beans are now a staple breakfast food, in America the H. J. Heinz Co. continue to sell baked beans, however they are not always as widely distributed as competing American brands. Despite their international fame there are currently substantial differences between the Heinz baked beans produced for the UK market (descended from the original American recipe) and the nearest currently equivalent American product (Heinz Premium Vegetarian Beans). The American product contains brown sugar where the British beans do not, and the US product contains 14g of sugar per 16 oz tin^[13] compared to 7g for the British version (equating to 140 vs 90 calories). The US beans have a mushier texture and are darker in color than their UK counterpart. This has resulted in a situation where the product is now imported back to the brand's home country. For several years, the UK Heinz Baked Beans have been available in the US, either in different sized cans from those sold in the UK or in a 385 gram can (the same can as the 415 gram can in the UK) with an "export" label with American English spelling and the word "baked" dropped from the title on the label. These are sold in many US specialty stores, such is the popularity of baked beans and their appeal to expats.

Bush, Van Camp, B&M, and Heinz all produce pork-free baked beans labeled as vegetarian beans, making this American dish available to people who abstain from pork for religious, dietary, or ethical reasons.

Elsewhere[link]

Home made Polish baked beans fasolka po bretońsku.

Traditional cuisines of many regions claim such recipes as typical specialities, for example:

• In Iran, Loubia Garm (Hot Beans) is prepared using beans in a tomato sauce, often served in winter on stalls in streets.
• In New Zealand, Wattie's Baked Beans are considered a cultural icon. Baked Beans have become a traditional food for New Zealanders.
• In Poland, with the addition of bacon and/or sausage these are known as Breton Beans (fasolka po bretońsku^[14]).
• Jersey bean crock
• Boston baked beans
• Pork and beans, which despite the name often contain very little pork
• Guernsey Bean Jar
• Spanish fabada
• French cassoulet
• Feijoada
• Fasolada
• New England baked beans
• Quebec-style baked beans are often prepared with maple syrup.
• Bean-hole beans, traditionally from Northern New England and Quebec, cooked in a covered fire pit in the ground for up to two days
• British cuisine claims beans on toast as a teatime favourite, the combination of cereal and legume forming an inexpensive complete protein; compare rice and beans. Variations of "beans on toast deluxe" can include extras as such as egg, grated cheese, marmite, tuna etc., and baked beans sometimes form part of a full English breakfast.
• Beans cooked in barbecue sauce (or a similarly flavoured sauce) are a traditional side dish in an American barbecue.
• "Franks & beans", a recipe wherein hot dogs are cut up and cooked in the same sauce as the baked beans. In Canada, this recipe is more commonly called "beans and wieners".
• In Mexico and Latin America baked beans are also popular: black beans (frijoles negros) and pinto beans (frijoles pintos) are the most common.
• In the Balkans, they are known as prebranac.
• The traditional Jewish Shabbat dish cholent (also known as hamin) is made with meat, potatoes, beans and barley.

Many unusual dishes are made with baked beans including the baked bean sandwich. These are slices of bread topped with beans and other additions, such as melted cheese.

Health[link]

In 2002 the British Dietetic Association allowed manufacturers of canned baked beans to advertise the product as contributing to the recommended daily consumption of five - six vegetables per person. This concession was criticised by heart specialists who pointed to the high levels of sugar and salt in the product. However, it has been proven that consumption of baked beans does indeed lower total cholesterol levels and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, even in normo-cholesterolaemic individuals.^[15][16] Some manufacturers produce a "healthy option" version of the product with lower levels of sugar and salt.

Flatulence[link]

Baked beans are known on occasion to cause a considerable increase in flatulence following consumption;^[17][18] this is due to the fermentation of polysaccharides (specifically oligosaccharides) by gut flora, specifically Methanobrevibacter smithii. The oligosaccharides pass through the upper intestine largely unchanged, and when they reach the lower intestine, bacteria feed on them, producing copious amounts of flatus.^[19] This condition is the basis for the children's song, "Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit".

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Baked beans

• Bean Bible