Boston Baked Beans??
 

I'll be traveling with a goofy friend next month. He wants some Boston Baked Beans!!! Any downtown stand out for these, if they even exist?? Will be doing the Freedom Trail, so anywhere in the general area. Thanks!

Durgin-Park

Durgin Park, in Quincy Market, right on the Freedom Trail.

Also Indian Pudding. Their specialty is prime rib by the slab but they also have delicious oysters.

There is a quiet top floor if you don't want to sit in the maelstrom of the second floor. Just ask.

Never thought about this before, but considering it's "Beantown" and everyone assumes that you can get Boston Baked Beans anywhere, it's amazing how few places sell it. (You might have to eat in a few of the college dining rooms to get it!)

Good old B&W canned baked beans, along with their MUST HAVE canned brown bread, does it very well for me.

But yes, by ALL means, go to Deuhgin Pahk.

I have lived in Boston since being born here 58 years ago, but have never eaten or even seen baked beans that weren't from a can. Enjoy them if you like, but it's not exactly a regional specialty.

Boston beans must be something from the Revolutionary War period - I agree with Anon and others. Never seen one, never missed one, and never thought about it.

And no one here calls Boston Beantown.

At first I thought she was talking about the candy. Has anyone ever had it? I remember eating it as a kid.

gail, I almost made a comment about BBB being 'Yankee" or "Pilgrim" food.

At our house, they were occasionally part of Saturday night franks 'n' beans, but that was mom's night off and they came from a can. Maybe you could go to Plimoth Plantation and see the whole crock-in-the ground thing, though I don't recall any BBB from the authentic banquet I had there once.

In my area north of Boston, they are a French Canadian staple most frequently served for breakfast as a side dish. Many places will advertise that they serve a particular local baked bean recipe.

Dad was a Maniac and we had Boston Baked Beans and Brown Bread every fall and winter Sunday! I went to a super bowl party and was asked to bring regional team foods. I brought brown bread and no one had heard of it!

When I was a child we had baked beans delivered in the brown bean pot like on sale at DP. We also would summer at Salisbury beach and they delivered there.

PS. The country's oldest restaurant is the olde Union Oyster house. They serve baked beans as a side dish and we would bike over and sit at the oyster bar on the street level and enjoy the tourists.

Tell your goofy friend the waitress/order taker isn't interested in jokes about the effects of eating beans. I waitress someplace that sold baked beans and you would be surpised at the gross jokes I had to listen to.

If all else fails, B&M canned beans will work in a pinch.I'm a transplanted New Enlander who as a child had beans every Saturday night. (Hard to get here in Montana but I've found a store that carries B&M.)

You hear media types refer to it as "Beantown" when they don't call it "the Hub."

"You hear media types refer to it as 'Beantown' when they don't call it 'the Hub.'"

Most of them probably from Dubuque.

I lived in Vermont not Boston, but "Boston baked beans" were a homemade dish, made from scratch... soak the beans, etc. I don't remember ever seeing them in restaurants or a street stand!

Will echo those above suggesting Durgin Park as the place to get baked beans, as well as Old Fashioned Yankee Style cooking in general. I don't know if the Union Oyster House offers beans, but given that Durgin Park outperforms this place on most all food items I've tried, I'd tread with great caution at UOH if they have it.

At the moment there is only Durgin Park serving the beans and the Union Oyster as a side dish. Through the years other places have put them on the menu but not this year. You can check menus on line.

P.S. you can ask on the Boston board on chowhound if anyone new is serving them.

As a lifelong New Englander (60+ yrs) whose great,great,great etc. grandparents, since 1629, through my own parents, me and my grown kids always lived in New England, baked beans were a staple. I still make them from scratch, which is a 36 hr process, every Thanksg and Christmas. Everyone loves them. Durgin-Park has them but don't know if they're home made. "Real" ones are yummy, nothing like the canned stuff.

When can I visit and taste yours :)

Yeah, when do we get to taste some of that homemade Yankee food?

Thank goodness irishswampyankee continues the tradition of making real baked beans. What a shame they are disappearing because B&W or Bush's just aren't the same. I, too, suggest Durgin Park and recommend some Indian Pudding for dessert. In our area we still have church suppers where TWO kinds of baked beans are served. My MIL favored yellow eye beans. I haven't made any in ages (dang low carb, low fat diet) but when I do I use her recipe which is half sugar and half molasses etc. One time in Amish country I exasperated a waitress by asking her to explain what shoo fly pie and black bottom pie was. She was young and snippy. I told her we had desserts she didn't know about and finally got her with Indian Pudding.
Good luck experiencing a bit of New England history. Sorry Boston's reputation as bean town is fading.

I make them all the time in the winter when having the oven on is an advantage here in Nantucket.

Mine have what I consider a good bit of molasses, but they are _infinitely_ less sweet than canned baked beans. I parboil the salt pork before I add it, and I use a good bit of dried mustard and often too much onion, though I am getting that under control. Using onion at all is controversial.

If I start them soaking after supper one night, we can have them for supper the next night. Sometimes I save half the soaked and cooked beans to make cassoulet.

I really like the idea of a baked bean supper, though I have never been to one. It fits right in with my firm belief that when I get to heaven, they will be having a church supper with nothing but fried chicken and potato salad on the menu, all made by different people, and I will get to try them all.

Irishswampyankee, would you be willing to share your recipe?

Ackislander, I figure I'm going to show up in heaven with my vegetable parer so they'll let me in. Some church suppers are great but it really depends on who's doing the cooking. We know who makes the best pies. When another group holds a benefit supper they don't usually have the best pie bakers or try to make things easier by serving apple crisp or ice cream on brownies. Baked beans should also be available at some of the country fairs. Not sure about Eastern States. The smaller fairs usually have a food booth run to raise money for a local church.
What kind of beans do you use?

gmoney,

My recipe sounds similar to others':

I keep changing some of the proportions depending on mood but basically I soak 1 bag of small, white beans for 12 hours overnight, drain, cover with water again and then gently simmer for 1 hr, drain and save liquid. Layer beans in old fashioned brown bean pot with some salt pork rind removed, several slices chopped bacon, about 1/2 cup molasses, a little dark brown sugar, about 1/2 yellow onion chopped or more if you like, (yes, I do use them), 1 - 2 tsp or so of dry mustard. Add about 1/4 cup leftover black coffee, pour reserved bean liquid just to cover all, stir gently, cover pot. Bake at 275 for 6 hrs. Check about once an hr, stir gently with rubber spatula being careful not to break up beans. Add more liquid as needed to just keep beans covered. Liquid will thicken as it bakes. If you run out of bean liquid you can use plain water, or chicken broth. These are great as leftovers too. I don't add salt bcs the bacon and salt pork are enough, IMO, but others may disagree.

Whole process takes 20 hours or so. Sorry for saying 36 the other day. What was I thinking? A senior moment. Seem to be having more of those lately.

If you make these, hope you enjoy them.

I found an old NY Times "Fare of the Country" article that said Boston Baked beans were hard to find more than 20 years ago and mentioned Union Oyster House and Durgin Park as the places to find them:
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...gewanted=print

Ackislander, you apparently aren't going to believe me that local media in Boston, notably weather people and "local color" reporters, DO use the smarmy "Beantown" or "Hub," so I promise to record it and play it back on YouTube. Watch for it.

Meanwhile, I've been to Dubuque. I've relatives in Dubuque. It's a pretty town (I'm sure you haven't seen it), but it's no Beantown.

Responses to a couple of points:

(1)I use Goya navy beans on the theory that because so many Hispanic people eat beans, the beans are likely to be fresh. But I am going to try some of those yellow beans this winter.

(2) Media people in Boston may say 'Beantown' but few of the media people on television in Boston are Bostonians. No offense to Dubuque. My mother was from eastern Iowa. My cousins live all over there.

Thank you all, the Durgin Park sounds great. :)

Just "Durgin Park" -- no "the"!

Budget Queen:

Beantown, Boston Baked Beans, Molasses, Rum - Saturday night dinners...... all connected for many of us born and bred in Boston -

My grandmother and mothers beans were home made, with plenty of molasses in the recipe - but we ate plenty over the years at Durgin Park and even the old Red Coach Grills - along with Indian Pudding and Bread Puddings -

on Sat nights, frank and beans ruled, especially if your parents were going out - along with some brown bread with butter fried in a frying pan !! Later, in a pinch, you'd eat a can of baked beans but you felt guilty about it -

There are plenty of Bostonians who have used the term "Beantown" ourselves -

Beans were a popular dish in old Boston - and since Boston was a port for rum and molasses it was plentiful -

before that big vat of molasses exploded down on Commercial St in the 1900's, mothers used to send their kids down to the vat to catch the molasses dripping off the sides !

I recently did a coastal classroom visit to a school in California, and my Boston presentation would not have been complete with mention of many things, but including - the nickname Beantown and the great Molasses Flood among other things -

If you do a google search, you will find varying reports on nicknames for Boston - walking city, the hub, etc - but probably one of the oldest is definitely BeanTown because the Beanpot was a huge symbol in earlier times and is seen on holds a prominent place on many maps, publications, artwork, etc - and for a reason - it was a plentiful and popular food item

Aside from eating the 'real' boston baked beans, growing up in Boston, you also had to eat these at some point in your childhood, usually from the penny candy store !!
you can still find them in some stores and order them online -

http://preview.tinyurl.com/34pdn3

If you are not familiar with the great Molasses Flood - you should do a quick google search and learn about it - also recently a book - The Dark Tide - written on the tragedy - gives a window into the history, culture, trade in Boston then and is a quick and easy read , as well as fascinating -

My grandfather used to gather us all around for story time and we used to BEG for the story of the great molasses flood and the horses getting stuck midstream and it rolling down the streets we then would walk - it fascinated us - of course, when we were younger, he left out some of the more enormous tragedy of it and put in more and more of that as we got older - hence, we are all in my family fascinated by it to the point where when the book came out I received four copies that year for Christmas from various friends !

have fun in Beantown/ Boston/ Hub/ walking City -
whatever you call it - just remember - we love that dirty water, oh yea, Boston you're my home !

:)

gyppielou: Don't know how I missed your link to the Boston Baked Bean candy too !! How funny - a good ole memory -

and sorry Gail, there are those of us from Boston who have used the term Beantown :)

great talk story escargot! I remember driving by the Red Coach Grille in Sudbury, lazy days at the Wayside Inn Gristmill.....

Baked beans - not just Boston, but a New England tradition. My grandmother made them every Saturday night. My mother followed, and my dad loved brown bread with them. Our family recipe includes yellow eye beans, onion, dry mustard, salt pork and maple syrup (I'm from Vermont), mixed with the molasses. Baked, of course, in a tradtional bean pot.

you can get them at Jasper whites summer shack (but I'd recommend the lobster roll)

This thread made me so homesick that we had to have a Bean Suppah tonight. Had B&M baked beans, canned B&M brown bread, Boar's Head Knockwurst and cole slaw. Fantastic!