Artisan Pork and Beans

Why should anyone make baked beans when B&M and Bush’s make pretty good canned beans? Because they can be better made at home, though it takes awhile. At some point canned goods move from preserved foods to food products. Baked beans straddle the border.

Understand, canned goods are the product of an industrial/military complex of another time. Admittedly, the birth of canning is tied to an earlier global economy. The history of canning dates to the late 18^th century. Napoleon Bonaparte, desiring a reliable food supply for his empire building armies, offered a cash reward to anyone who could come up with reliable way to preserve food. It must have been a sizable one. Nicholas Appert subsequently spent 15 years experimenting with ways of preserving food in bottles, like wine. Byron Dorkin and John Hall took the process one step further by devising a method to seal food in unbreakable tin containers. They established the first commercial canning plant in England in 1813.

While born from an imperial global economy, canning was wonderfully suited to the home economy. In its transition from the early industrial economy to the home economy, craft was added to the process.

Home canning is a craft that I would like to explore. Rita won’t let me. She does not want to put up with case upon case of Ball jars, boxes of lids and a pressure cooker. It was hard enough to get her blessing for my interest in making hard cider. So I am content with canned goods from my grocer. Those are mostly limited to chicken and beef stock, diced tomatoes and tomato paste, pickles, beans and canned fruits and vegetables.

Here is where the artisan pork and beans come in. My home made beans are magnificent.

Rita and I went to a wedding in Boston. I hadn't been to New England before, so we rented a car and toured the Main Coast and New Hampshire's White Mountains. The primary objectives of this road trip were to find Charlie Bracket, to see an authentic Maine fishing village, and to find a good New England cookbook.

We found Charlie Bracket. He was delighted.

We eat lunch at a local water front restaurant/marina located in fishing cove north of Portland.

We didn't find a cookbook on our journey up the coast. It wasn't for a lack of vigilance. It was odd because we certainly visited enough touristy places where you would expect to find such a thing: Cape Ann, Salem, Lands End and more.

But all was not lost. While waiting for the plane home in Boston airport, I came across a New England cookbook in the airport's small bookstore. "The Book of New England Cookery," by Judith and Evan Jones.

In checking out The New New England cookbook I naturally looked at the chowder recipes. They looked good. But, the baked beans were what really sold me.

The instructions read in part:

"Dig a hole about 6 inches deeper and wider than the bean pot, and line it with small stones embedded in the earth. Build a fire of hardwood in the hole, and let it burn for about two hours. Use a shovel to remove the fire, but leave a layer of hot coals on the bottom. Put the bean filled pot in the hole, cover with the remaining hot coals, then top with a layer of earth about 4 to 6 inches thick. Leave the hole and its contents for about 6 hours, or, better yet, overnight."

Man, you've got to love a recipe for lowly baked beans that has you digging holes in your lawn. Here's the possibility of transforming the predictable, hum drum Memorial Day cookout into serious fun.

The key to the recipe, however, isn't the hole in the ground. It's maple syrup. Boston baked beans originated as a Native American dish. It called for navy beans, bear fat, and maple syrup. Navy beans are native to North America. The New England merchant seamen took them on their voyages, hence the term navy bean.

Not only did the New England settlers quickly buy into the native North American bean, they also bought into the native North American recipe for making them. But they substituted salt pork for bear. When trade with the West Indies brought molasses to New England, it was substituted for Maple syrup. The molasses was a much cheaper sweetener.

This recipe called for:

"1 pound of navy or pea beans

2 1/4-pound slices of salt pork

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup of molasses or 1/4 cup of molasses and 1/4 cup of maple syrup

Freshly ground pepper

Soak the beans overnight in water to cover. Put them in a large pot, bring to a boil, and cook until the skins burst when two or three are spooned out and blown upon. In a heavy pot with a tight fitting lid, put one thick piece of salt pork. Add cooked beans, the reserved liquid, salt molasses, and several turns of the pepper grinder. Put the remaining slice of salt pork on the top, skin side up. Cover the pot and put it in the hole you have prepared as follows..."

I followed this recipe with these exceptions.

I used 3/4 pound of salt pork cut into one inch cubes, and mixed the cubes with the beans. Salt pork comes in nominal 3/4 to one pound packages. What are you going to do with what ever is left?  And I baked them covered in a 275 degree oven for about five hours.

The result was out of this world. I had imagined the salt pork would remain as cubes of fat swimming in the beans like the pork in canned pork and beans. Instead the fat cooked off giving the beans a subtle meaty flavor and leaving little chunks of slow cooked pork in the stew. Those flavors with the hint of maple and slight bitter tinge from the molasses became married to the texture of tender yet firm beans. Here, finally, was something far superior to what comes out of a can. I think an onion would add nicely to the mix.

Since then, I have added:

1 Tbs. mustard powder

1 Tbs. minced garlic

1 large onion cut into a bite sized dice and added during the last hour of baking

1 to 2 Tbs. tomato paste to thicken the sauce

There you have it, my artisan pork and beans. I could easily cook up and jar 4 or 5 gallons of these beauties on a Sunday, then sell them the following Saturday at the farmers’ market. In doing so, I might also find myself in violation of a whole host of food regulations and in a big hurt, regardless of how fond my customers were of my artisan beans.

There you have it, a soft tyranny.