wicked good beans!

In Maine, back in the Bronze Age when I grew up, it was traditional to have Boston baked beans on Saturday night, and by this I mean every Saturday night. Now, there were families that just heated up a can of B&M, dumped some coleslaw from Shaw’s into a bowl, steamed up the brown bread and called it a night. Not mine. For us, baked beans represent serious tradition. Grammie Sue baked her own, as do my parents, and so do I. In the past, I have even made my own brown bread, but I cannot in good conscience urge you to do so; just buy the can. Making brown bread is a pain in the bean shoot.

Why Saturday night?, I’ll bet you’re wondering. Well, I can only guess, but my hunch is that it has something to do with the Puritan mania for mortification of the flesh. Let me explain.

Read the rest of this entry →