The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-03-23
Baked Beans.

There are beans, and then there are
beans! This is a dictum that we need
not argue, in Yankee land, where the
favOrite vegetable is mis-cooked in as
many different ways as there are to
make poor bread. We always sympa-
thiZed in the jeremiad of the outspoken
Gail Hamilton (What would have be-
come of her if she had kept pent up for
the past dozen yearsD over the decay of
New England knack in modern days,
in preparing the regulation Sunday
morning breakfast. We believe she
classed it with the most-to-be lamented
of the lost arts. There are many mani
festaticns of this loss, among which are
the slippery, sloppery yellow beans of
the corner bakery-intact, globular,
perversely individual, which no man is
justified in guessing are either steamed,
boiled, or baked. It is a fundamental
axiom in correct bean-making, that no
dish can be right that is "unmussed."
A whole bean is a confession of failure
in the cook. Then there are the baked
beans of the restaurant-a dry, undone,
waxy, aggravating mess. A son of
Yankee who will make way with a
plate of the average eating-house beans,
when he can get an apple pie nine days
old, or a sandwich that has been used
for a sign not more than a week, is
degenerate scion. And then there are
the "fashionable'i baked beans, served
in shallow, dainty platter, more
adapted to display the China than to do
| justice to the generous, historic dish
innocent of pork, bleached until they
are flavorless, and then cooked to death.
Beans cannot survive ''style." It is as
fatal to them as it is to the spare-rib, or
roast oysters, or any other of the good,
Old-time luxuries. We have einterviewed,
specially for this occasion, 8 house
keeper whose baked beans are worthy of
the renown of that ancestor of hers who
helped through the war of the Revolu-
tiOn, by seeing to it that the soldiers
home on a furlough, or in adjacent
camps, always had good rye and injun-
bread and baked beans fit for patriot
And she says that the only secret about
it is ITO have them Just right.n You
want to soak them over night, or par
boil them in two or three waters, until
they are at the cracking point. If your
appetite is not robust enough to eat
pork, and you have the art to cook
them without it, all that is required is
to season the dish to the fine point of
half a pinch of salt, a single shake of
the pepper-boX, and a lump of butter,
neither too large nor too small, and
have piece of spare-rib roasted separ-
ately to serve with them. The beans
must also be of 'just the right consist
ency when put into the dish for bak-
ing" So far, we believe, 1t is all clear.
If you have stamina enough for pork,
praise your ancestry and kind heaven,
and put the sweet cris-crossed piece OF
seasoning meat, with its possibilities of
crisp rinds, in the center of the dish,
with slices ornamenting the sides. All
you need of the oven is to have it
"neither too hot nor too slow" The
beans must then simmer until they are
'Just DONE" To secure the exact shade
of brown over the top, and the precise
degree of heat and moisture inside
needed to bring each individual bean to
the very point Of cracking and coales-
cling with its neighbor-without en-
tirely doing it-that is all the direction
one needs as to baking. If it isn't clear,
you must learn as the boy learns to
swim. And then, as to serving: 1t is
the egg of an effete and over-ripe social
, despotism to "dish out1 q pan of baked
: beans. Assert your independence, and
preserve the integrity of your result by
placing them upon the table in the dish
in which they were cooked. Let the
servant pass around the empty china, if
you wish, to assure the family or guest
that you have it. And have enough
left to know the luxury of cold beans
that have heart in them. Thus shall
! one of our glorious New England insti-
tutiOns be restored to add lustre to the
Centennial lyear.-AdirOnddck Murray
/; Golden Rule.