Ashtabula weekly telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1880-1886, 1880-12-17
The Navy Bean.

EVERYBODY has heard OF Boston's
brown bread and baked beans, and
many Of our readers know what they are
from pleasant experience. Boston, and
in fact New England, are about as well
known for their baked beans as for their
"culchaw." Ia Boston it is almost the
universal habit to have baked beans for
the Sunday morning breakfast The
highest and the lowest gather about the
baked beans of q Sunday morning, and
feast upon about the cheapest article Of
diet that there is in the market. During
the week the tables of the rich groan
beneath the costliest dishes and the ta-
bles of the poor are scantily spread with
the cheapest the markets afford. But on
Sundays they all eat of the same dish,
and thousands of them from the same
oven. II is o matter of curiosity to see
the bean-pots going to the bakery on a
Saturday night. The servants, where
servants are employed, and the good
housewife whose husband can not afford
the luxury of a servant girl, prepare the
pot on Saturday. The beans are par
boiled until the skins crack they are then
placed in the celebrated Boston bean
pot which is earthen, and much smaller
at the top than at the bottom. Salt is
added to suit the taste, and sometimes
a spoonful of molasses. A piece of salt
pork about the size of the three first fin
gers, is sliced through the rind at dis
tances of an eighth of an inch, and
placed upon the top of the beans, or
rather imbedded in them, until the sur
face is even. Then the pot is taken to
the bakery, a check received, and upon
presentation of the check in the morn
ing, the Sunday breakfast is returned
ready for the table. The streets are full
of bean-pots and their bearers. They
go to the mansion and the cottage, to
Beacon Hill and North Street. The
bean is the great leYeler of Boston society.
On the farms In New England the
plan of baking is TO make a roaring fire
in an old-fashioned fire place, and when
the wood has been consumed, the pot of
beans is buried in the Goals and ashes,
where it remains until Sunday morning (;
and these are the best baked beans that
mortal ever ate. In the West are East
ern people who know how to bake
beans, and there are many who do not
know how to bake them, but yet bake
them; and all over the civilized world
Boston baked beans are to be had
canned. New England has been the
friend of the bean, has stood by it at
home, and is not ashamed to introduce
it to strangers.
The result is that there is an enor-
nous consumption of this little white
bean in this country, and while they are
comparatively cheap in the markets,
their great yield make them a profitable
crop to the grower. They are a good
strong food and ought to be more gem
orally introduced as a stated diet on our
farm tables. In the South they are
made into a sort of thick bean soup, a
stew, which suits some palates better
than when baked. The bean generally
used for baking purposes is the Navy, a
bean that will do better on poor soil
than almost any crop that is grown. In
some portions Of the South they grow
this bean on what is considered other
wise worthless land, and while in the
West our land is fertile, this paper cir
oulates over such wide territory that
it reaches readers who own or occupy q
great deal of poor land. If you have
such land, try it with beans. Help sup.
ply the demand for the Navy Western
Rural.