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.

http://www.ferrarapan.com/html/bb_history.html

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.