page_title: Baked beans
section_title: Origins and history in the Americas
hierarchical_section_title: Baked beans / Origins and history in the Americas
caption_attribution_description: English: Three ceramic beanpots. The large black pot is made by Le Creuset. The medium brown pot is an antique, but of a form still used by artisan potters in the United States. The small pot, glazed with the letters "Boston Baked Beans," is a souvenir item, not meant for actually cooking.
context_page_description: Baked beans is a dish traditionally containing white beans which are parboiled and then baked at a low temperature for a lengthy period of time in some sort of sauce. This is the usual preparation of the dish in the United States when not using canned beans. In the United Kingdom the dish is sometimes baked, but usually stewed in a sauce. Canned baked beans are not baked, but are cooked through a steam process.
  Baked beans has its origins in Native American cuisine, and the dish is made from beans indigenous to the Americas. The dish was adopted and adapted by English colonists in New England in the 17th century and, through the aid of published 19th century cookbooks, the dish spread to other regions of the United States and into Canada. Today in the New England region of the United States a variety of indigenous legumes are still used when preparing this dish in restaurants or in the home, such as Jacob's cattle, soldier beans, yellow-eyed beans, and navy beans.
  Originally baked beans were sweetened with maple syrup by Native Americans, a tradition some recipes still follow, but some English colonists modified the sweetening agent to brown sugar beginning in the 17th century.
context_section_description: According to chef and food historian Walter Staib of Philadelphia's City Tavern, baked beans had its roots as a Native peoples dish in the Americas long before the dish became known to Western culture. Native Americans mixed beans, maple sugar, and bear fat in earthenware pots which they placed in underground "bean holes" which were lined in hot rocks to cook slowly over a long period of time.
  British colonists in New England were the first westerners to adopt the dish from the Native peoples; and were quick to embrace it largely because the dish was reminiscent of peas porridge and because the dish used ingredients native to the New World. They substituted molasses or sugar for the maple syrup, bacon or ham for the bear fat, and simmered their beans for hours in pots over the fire instead of underground. Each colony in America had its own regional variations of the dish, with navy or white pea beans used in Massachusetts, Jacob's Cattle and soldier beans used in Maine, and yellow-eyed beans in Vermont. This variation likely resulted from the colonists receiving the dish from different Native peoples who used different native beans.
  While some historians have theorized that baked beans had originated from the cassoulet or bean stew tradition in Southern France, this is unlikely as the beans used to make baked beans are all native to South America and were introduced to Europe around 1528. However, it is likely that English colonists used their knowledge of cassoulet cooking to modify the cooking technique of the beans from the traditional Native American version, by soaking the bean overnight and simmering the beans over a fire before baking it in earthen pots in order to decrease the cooking time. Indeed, a dish which was a clear precursor to baked beans, entitled "beans and bacon", was known in medieval England. The addition of onion and mustard to some baked beans recipes published in New England in the 19th century was likely based on traditional cassoulet recipes from Staffordshire, England which utilized mustard, beans, and leeks. These ingredients are still often added to baked beans today. Nineteenth century cookbooks published in New England, spread to other portions United States and Canada, which familiarized other people with the dish.
  While many recipes today are stewed, traditionally dried beans were soaked over night, simmered until tender (parboiled), and then slow-baked in a ceramic or cast-iron beanpot. Originally baked beans were sweetened with maple syrup by Native Americans, a tradition some recipes still follow, but some English colonists modified the sweetening agent to brown sugar beginning in the 17th century. In the 18th century the convention of using American made molasses as a sweetening agent became increasingly popular in order to avoid British taxes on sugar. The molasses style of baked beans has become closely associated with the city of Boston, and is often referred to as Boston baked beans.  Today 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. 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. The results of the dish, commonly described as having a savory-sweet flavor and a brownish- or reddish-tinted white bean, however cooked are the same.
  A tradition in Maine of "bean hole" cooking 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 and allowed to burn down to hot coals, and then a pot with 11 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, served at every meal.
  While
caption: Three beanpots used for cooking homemade baked beans. The small one is glazed with the letters "Boston Baked Beans"
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