Baked beans

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Baked beans and scrambled egg on toast.

Baked beans is a dish consisting of beans baked (or, despite the name, often stewed) in a sauce.

Traditional cuisines of many regions claim such recipes as typical specialities, for example:

Boston baked beans
Jersey bean crock
Guernsey bean jar
Cassoulet
Feijoada
New England baked beans
Quebec-style baked beans are often prepared with maple syrup.
British cuisine claims beans on toast as a teatime favourite, and baked beans may form part of a Full English breakfast
Beans cooked in Barbecue sauce (or a similarly flavored sauce) are a traditional side-dish in a United States 'barbeque'.

Most commercial tinned baked beans such as Heinz are made from navy beans,also known as the Boston Bean, a variety of Phaseolus vulgaris, and sold in a sauce. In the United Kingdom, tomato sauce is most commonly used. In the United Kingdom navy beans are called haricot beans although Heinz itself describes its product as being made from "Canadian navy beans" [1]. Also, baked beans should not be confused with Pork and Beans which are also navy beans in tomato sauce, but are not sweetened with brown sugar or flavored with onions like baked beans.

The popularity of baked beans may be due to the fact they are cheap to make and buy. In the United Kingdom, for example, supermarkets may sell store brand baked beans for less than ten pence a tinned can, but some premium organic brands may be as expensive as one pound & fifty pence[2]. Baked beans have recently begun appearing in conjunction with other foods, such as a filler inside sausages, as a sidedish with bacon, or as a pizza topping.

1 Regional variations
2 History
3 Health
4 Bean wars
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Regional variations

In the United States, Bush's is the top producer of baked beans, and the company produces several flavors. Most of these products are in a very sweet sauce with little tang. By comparison, home made baked beans are considerably tangier. In the State of Vermont baked beans usually are sweetened with Vermont Maple syrup. As you move south along the eastern coast of the country, the beans become tangier usually due to the addition of yellow mustard. Ground beef also becomes common alongside bacon in these beans. They take on a flavor similar to Cowboy Beans, a similar popular dish.

In the United Kingdom, Heinz is the top selling brand of baked beans. There are substantial differences between the Heinz baked beans sold in the UK and the nearest equivalent U.S. product (Heinz Premium Vegetarian Beans). The U.S. beans contain brown sugar where the British beans do not. The U.S. product contains a total of 14g of sugar per can compared to 7g for the British version (equating to 140 vs 90 calories per tin). The U.S. beans also possess a mushier texture and are darker in colour than their UK counterpart.

In some parts of the UK baked beans are served in a cup and called "Cup of beans". It is often served with a single fried or grilled sausage, or boiled egg (sometimes referred to as a "boilie", though not to be confused with the cheese variety or the egg-based carp bait of the same name) partially immersed. A sausage (beef, pork or vegetarian varieties) can be used as an edible spoon when consuming the dish. It has been said that a sausage eaten as an accompaniment is like a "savoury '99"[3], in reference to the Cadbury's Flake chocolate bar often eaten with soft ice-cream. This phrase was used in the British Broadcasting Corporation television series 'I'm Alan Partridge', in Season 2 Episode 3 where Michael hands Alan a cup of beans with the words "There you go, as ordered. One cup o' beans. I've put a sausage in it and all." [4] (link to video clip)

[edit] History

New and old versions of the Heinz brand

The recipe for baked beans may be based on a Native American dish in which beans were cooked with bear fat and maple syrup in an earthenware pot. European settlers may have adapted this recipe, using pork fat and molasses.

According to alternative traditions, sailors brought cassoulet from the south of France, or the regional bean stew recipes from northern France and the Channel Islands.

Most probably, a number of regional bean recipes coalesced and cross-fertilised in North America and ultimately gave rise to the baked bean culinary tradition familiar today.

The Heinz company markets their product in the UK under the name "Baked Beanz", in reference to a 1960s advertisement campaign which used the slogan "Beanz Meanz Heinz".

Branston Beans Advert

In October 2005, Premier Foods Plc launched Branston Baked Beans. The marketing and promotion of this product was aimed squarely at challenging Heinz's dominance of the UK baked bean market. This marketing included an advert, featuring a Branston Bean Tin explaining how Branston Beans are very "saucy." Promotional activities included a 'Great British Bean Poll' where members of the public across the country were invited to blind taste both 'the brand leader' (assumed to be Heinz) and Branston. 76% of participants picked Branston over the brand leader. Heinz was subsequently obliged to re-evaluate its advertising strategy in the face of this aggressive activity, although in public Heinz spokespeople dismissed the challenge as a 'non-starter'.

[edit] Health

In 2002 the British Dietetic Association, allowed manufacturers of canned baked beans to advertise the product as contributing to the recommended five daily allowance of vegetables per person. This concession was criticised by heart specialists who pointed to the high levels of sugar and salt in the product. Some manufacturers produce a "healthy option" version of the product with lower levels of sugar and salt.

[edit] Bean wars

In the mid to late 1990s in the United Kingdom, a 'war' broke out among leading supermarket retailers, in which the price of store branded beans was heavily reduced. In some cases, supermarkets briefly gave customers a penny per tin of beans to take them away, although this offer was limited to three tins per customer. Understandably, such deals were particularly popular with students and low-income families. Although prices have risen since then, the 'war' is arguably responsible for the continuing low prices of this staple product in the UK (for example, as of 2007 Asda sells its Smart Price beans at 17p). The reason for the price reduction was not only to get customers to buy baked beans but also to encourage the consumption of the products that would accompany it, such as bread, margarine, butter, and cheese, which have higher profit margins.