Beans

[Deleted]

That would quickly get disgusting. I imagine Mexicans emptying out their pots quite regularly; this isn't India.

[Deleted]

ha! Indians don't even have pots. When I was a kid on India, we didn't have a fridge or stove or even electricity!

In which case everything has to be cooked freshly every meal time.

[lagatta]

Oh dear, eating turds and emptying out pots. This has reached toilet humour in record time.

[Deleted]

Beans never lead to noble discussions.

[LouisXIV]

Today is the 4th of July, our Independence Day and I invited my 92-year-old mother over for a sort of typical American picnic. I was going to have hot dogs, potato salad and baked beans. But at the last minute I switched to Weißwurst – We are fortunate in Traverse City to have a very good meat market that makes their own sausage and they make a sausage that they call a White Brat, but I feel it is almost identical the Weißwurst I have had in Germany. It was the typical July 4th weather here today, HOT. So before picking up my mother I took a cool shower. I frequently put on Equipage by Hermes, but I thought it might not work well with the Weißwurst, so I elected to put on 4711 Kolnisch Wasser. But I digress, this is about baked beans.

I have always liked baked beans, especially those made by my grandmothers and aunts and of course my mother. But to do it correctly it really takes time and effort and for just me there is just more than I can eat. So I came up with this little short cut that I think is rather tasty, and today my mother did also.

Louis Baked Beans

One or two cans of store bought baked beans, the cheapest you can find.
One large sweet onion
Five or six strips of bacon (The tasty, fatty, salty and unhealthy American kind)
Two or three tablespoons of maple syrup.
Two table spoons of brown sugar
A couple dashes of Liquid Smoke.

First I take the beans, open the can and empty the contents into a colander to drain off all the liquid (I think the manufacture would call it the sauce I’m not going to be that kind.). While it is draining take the onion and dice to a small size put into a sauce pan, add the maple syrup, brown sugar and Liquid Smoke, put on a low heat and cook until the Onion is starting to be tender. While that is cooking take the strips of bacon and cut into about ¼ inch pieces and put them in a frying pan and cook until they start to become crisp, drain the fat and put the bacon on a paper towel. I then combine all the ingredients, stir and serve. You can also prepare ahead of time and just warm up to serve.

For those of you that are not familiar with Liquid Smoke, it is a small bottle of a brown liquid that you add to sauces to give the hint of a BBQ taste. When you open the bottle and give it a sniff, it reminds me of an electrical fire.

[Deleted]

My parents would have killed to be able to find white sausage when they lived in the U.S. Even in France, it is difficult to find in Paris -- I always bring back some from either Lorraine or Luxembourg.

I actually have a bottle of Liquid Smoke. It must be very very old.

[kerouac2]

How is it possible that we don't have a thread devoted to beans?

They are one of my favourite food items, even after testing once again that sugary soupy presentation at the breakfast buffet in London yesterday.

I like every kind of bean, but I am thinking of the unpodded ones at the moment -- white beans, red beans, kidney beans, lima beans, flageolets, black beans, lentils, favas... You name them, I'll eat them.  Some of the best dishes in the world are made with beans -- cassoulet, chili con carne, foul, feijoada, dal, refried beans...  How can anybody not love them?

Oh, I know -- the gas factor.  Well, it is a normal part of life, and if you eat enough beans, the problem disappears quickly as your body adapts.

Which beans do you like?

[cheerypeabrain]

I have never liked tinned baked beans for some reason....too slimy(ew). Don't like butter beans either but have lots of dried beans and lentils in the store cupboad, they are great for bulking out soups and stews.

[mickthecactus]

Love beans.

Fresh broad beans and bacon are heavenly.

[bixaorellana]

Yes to beans!

Fresh favas cooked with seasoned tomatoes are delicious, but I now want to try Mick's way. I love lentils pretty much any way they are cooked and pinto beans are stars in whatever you put them. I like refried black beans, but two of my favorite Oaxaca ways to eat black beans are with pig feet and also cooked rather plainly with lots of their black broth.

The ones I'm passionate about but can't get are black-eyed peas, crowder peas, and field peas -- delightful little friends!

[lagatta]

I love beans but they don't always love me. The digestive distress goes far beyond wind at both ends of the digestive tract - it can be very painful. Chickpeas and lentils bother me less than the American beans, pity, as I dearly love black beans.

[tod2]

I'm a bean fan! Any kind of beans but especially fresh garden green beans. But I think Kerouac wants answers on bean seeds. Well those too are a hit with me. We eat baked bean in tomato sauce very occasionally but brown beans or I think you call then Flagio beans, are cooked with samp (corn kernels) and is a good staple of African cuisine after stiff corn porridge called Phutu.
There has to be a lot of big butter beans in my oxtail stew.

[kerouac2]

I confess to a certain cultural shock at the extremely sweet beans served at breakfast in England and Australia. I am also taken aback by the use of beans in Chinese desserts and drinks, but if I settled in any of those places, I'm pretty sure that I would quickly get used to it.

[onlyMark]

Prompted by this I've just had a look to compare the ingredients for baked beans from the Heinz UK website as opposed to a tin I have produced in South Africa. The reason being I noticed the ones here are less sweet then I remember from the UK.
The differences are that here appears to be about 34% less sugar in mine.
There is also less fat, less carbohydrate, less salt and more fibre. This results in less calories per serving, obviously. The figures for protein are the same, as are the ingredients.
As for the ingredients, I have 61% beans whereas in the UK it is 51%.
I cannot say on other proportions, but going by the usual standard of the most comes first - the UK lists beans, then tomatoes, then water. Whereas the SA one lists beans, then water, then not tomatoes, but tomato paste.

Hmm, interesting (to me anyway).

[tod2]

Very interesting Mark - thanks for those stats. If I have baked beans in a meal I prefer them with bacon. Must be the sweet & salty thing.

[kerouac2]

Yes, from what I know, labels everywhere are listed in descending order of ingredient percentages.

I just looked at the website of a leading French brand of "white beans in tomato sauce" since the French don't really do baked beans: white beans, water, tomato paste (2%), salt, celery

[lagatta]

That sounds much nicer. I find baked beans cloyingly sweet. Kerouac, they also exist in North America, but might not have been a thing where you lived: they are known as Boston baked beans, from New England, and also exist in eastern Canada, including Québec (where they might be made with maple syrup). I would think that this would also increase the gassy factor (I don't eat them).

[kerouac2]

Baked beans were eaten very little in the Deep South which preferred to save its sugar and molasses for other horrors, but I did encounter them from time to time. Nevertheless, even as a child I found them disgusting. As sweet as the breakfast beans are in England and Australia, they are much more edible than the American/Canadian version.

Just looked up what is in the Heinz American stuff (now called 'Beanz' I found out): Beans 51%, tomatoes 34%, water, sugar, spirit vinegar, corn flour, salt, spice & herb extract

[bixaorellana]

Well, hell -- I just wrote several paragraphs full of personal history and musings about beans and included three links and the #$%@^&* site crashed when I clicked on Post. Proboards was "experiencing issues". I guess that included not keeping my draft. I am getting really sick and tired of our host forum.

[tod2]

Sigh...sympathy!

[lagatta]

I've had posts I'd made simply disappear - not show up. I really don't want to have to type my posts in Word and paste them in here...

I'd love to hear bixa's leguminous legends, lore and longings.

[onlyMark]

If it's not a really big thing like a report, I'll write what I want, add links in or whatever then just before hitting the Post Reply button, I'll swipe over the whole thing, right click and "copy". Then if it goes..............
Also I've found just hitting the back button mostly brings it back.

[bixaorellana]

The whole site had crashed. It was "the angry bear" -- a cutesy term that makes me want to hunt down the proboards people and feed them to bears.

[lagatta]

The same thing happened to me every time I tried to access your bean tale.

I was getting mightily pissed off... make that belched and farted off, given the subject.

[kerouac2]

Probably Russian hackers trying to get us to eat cabbage instead of beans.

[lagatta]

Well, I did make a curtido (Salvadorian slightly-pickled cabbage) this week. With red cabbage, though Russia is no longer "red".

[rikita]

i like green beans best, though i also like the other kinds of beans these days (didn't use to - used to be suspicious of lentils, which i didn't count as beans though, and barely knew the other kinds ...), but green beans are still the ones we make most often, usually just very simple as a side ... i tried to make baked beans a couple of times and it tasted alright, used the beans you can get here for that, though, no idea about the sugar content ...

[kerouac2]

I never think of green beans of really being beans, since really the main thing you are eating is the pod. The beans are just little unborn babies inside.

[mickthecactus]

Oh good grief.....

[tod2]

No Kerouac, beans is beans. Green or the actual new baby bean ripped out of its incubator!
What would you call the green outer layer then...green bean pod?