Why the baked bean divides America and Britain

By Josie Delap

SCENE 1. Dakota Territory. Laura Ingalls and her family are shivering through the long, hard winter of 1880-81. They huddle in their little house on the prairie, wrapped in coats and shawls, close to the stove. Eventually food will become scarce. Until then there are beans, cooked slowly overnight by Ma. “She lifted the lid of the bubbling kettle and quickly popped in a spoonful of soda. The boiling beans roared, foaming up, but did not quite run over. ‘There’s a little bit of salt pork to put in them too,’ Ma said. Now and then she spooned up a few beans and blew on them. When their skins split and curled, she drained the soda-water from the kettle and filled it again with hot water. She put in the bit of fat pork.”

SCENE 2. London. The spring of 2020. Covid-19 has brought anything resembling normal life to a shuddering halt. Children are stuck at home, day in, day out. And day in, day out, they must be fed. Again and again and again. Some day, when this is all over, they will eat lunch at school. Until then, there are baked beans. They are less of a home-cooked affair than those of the Ingalls family. Emptied out of a tin, perhaps into a pan on the stove, more likely into a bowl in the microwave, they are an instant meal. Spiced up with Tabasco or Worcestershire sauce, thickened with a slick of melted cheese, accompanied by some buttery Marmite toast, they are a feast.

Many countries have a favoured bean stew. In Mexico frijoles borrachos are simmered with bacon and garlic and onions. Ewa riro are a speciality of the Yoruba part of Nigeria. In France a cassoulet may contain a rich variety of meats but it is at heart still a bowl of stewed beans. For the dish known specifically as baked beans, you must turn to America and Britain. They are two countries, divided by a common bean.

Before Ma Ingalls was baking her beans with salt pork, Native Americans were cooking them with deer or bear fat. They seem to have passed on their skills to early settlers. For the pious Pilgrims the dish was a boon. They weren’t allowed to cook on the Sabbath; a pot of beans, baked overnight, starting on a Saturday evening, solved the problem.

In America baked beans are now largely associated with New England – Boston is known as Beantown. The navy bean, a small white variety, is a popular choice for baking but soldier beans (named after the red splash on their skin which, if you squint, resembles a toy soldier), yellow-eye beans (favoured in Maine) and Jacob’s Cattle beans are plausible alternatives. The canned kind still include pork fat in the list of ingredients but a side of hot dogs makes up for the missing chunk of salt pork.

Somewhere along the way molasses became a traditional ingredient. It brings a welcome contrast to the savouriness of the cured pig. Even today American baked beans are an oddly sweet affair – at least to Britons, the other great lovers of baked beans. In Britain baked beans are also navy beans (known there as haricot) but they are bathed in a tomato sauce. They are still sweet, but less so than the American version, and the pork has disappeared entirely. Most importantly they are Heinz.

Other brands are available. Other brands are cheaper. Some would venture to say that other brands are better. Britons remain unconvinced. Around 60% of the beans bought in British shops are made by Heinz, according to Kantar Worldpanel, a market-research firm. So successful was the strap line “Beanz Meanz Heinz” in Britain that eventually the word Heinz did not even need to appear in adverts.

The “on-toast meal” never makes it into recipe books

Baked beans are now an unquestionable part of the British culinary canon despite, as Rachel Laudan, a food historian, points out, having no precedents there. She suggests that Britons’ enthusiastic adoption of this American dish may have its roots in their love for a category of meal which never makes it into recipe books: the “on-toast meal”. Baked beans, says Laudan, are a happy addition to scrambled eggs, cheese, sardines and mushrooms, all of which sit deliciously atop a slice of toast.

Such is the dominance of Heinz in the world of British baked beans that few would think to actually make the dish from scratch. The Heinz factory in Wigan in the north of England is the largest food-processing plant in Europe and rolls out some 3m cans of beans each day.

Those inspired to try their own hand at it might do better to pick the original American variety. They are time-consuming (beans are soaked overnight and then cooked for five to six hours) but undemanding when it comes to the actual cooking. The result will in no way resemble what Britons think of as baked beans. But that may be all to the good.

The assumption that to cook it yourself will inevitably lead to a better version of something normally produced in vast quantities in a factory is often well placed. But this ignores two of the great pleasures of food. First, the role of memory. Those who grew up eating Heinz baked beans might enjoy a slowly simmered pan of beans, subtly flavoured with garlic and real tomatoes, yet it’s unlikely to bring any Proustian sighs of joy (“Beans, beans, good for the heart…”). Secondly, more prosaically but perhaps more urgently these days, the ease with which a meal can be prepared. Poured straight from the tin to a bowl, there is little washing up after beans – even if you embellish them. They will last for years in the cupboard, ready to go in an instant. Sometimes a can really does have it all.■

ILLUSTRATIONS BETH HOECKEL