The Three Sisters and New England Baked Beans
Did you know that the humble bean has ancient roots as part of the Legendary Three Sisters? The Three Sisters of the indigenous tribes of the Northeast refer to three crops that, when grown together, provide unequaled nutrition and soil enrichment. These three crops are corn, beans and squash. Meals cooked with this combination contain protein. Vitamin A, amino acids, complex carbohydrates, and fatty acids. By using the traditional combination in your garden, you too can successfully provide healthful and lasting food options for your families. Not to mention the benefits of growing them together can improve your garden itself!
Now if we take those beans, and mix in some frugal Yankee cooking, we find a staple dish here in New England. That’s right, good old New England baked beans, and the many regional variations often grew from necessity as well as availability.
Type of Beans
The chosen bean used in the recipe is the first factor to the plethora of regional flavors. Here we can grow many of the different varieties, but the most commonly used nowadays are:
yellow black haricot
navy great northern french
kidney pinto flagelot
……and the list goes on and on
Regional Ingredients
Recipes are often prepared with a variety of other ingredients, and depending where you are from, that can vary, and create in turn creates uniquely regional flavors.
Boston recipes are sweetened with molasses. As it was a major port and welcomed thousands of ships carrying molasses…and Rum, from the Caribbean. Our Northern cooks had the pleasure of easy access to the sweet syrup derived from Maple sap.
Another variant is in the chosen savory/fatty ingredient. New Hampshire often have salt pork, while Vermonters have their own versions commonly made with bacon instead.
Traditional Maine recipes use of the bean-hole bean, cooked over hot coals in a hole in the ground. That’s the way the Penobscot people did it back in the day, often with bear fat, venison or even cod.
Throughout the Northeast and beyond, beans were served at every meal in the hundreds of logging camps. The bean hole is a stone-lined pit in which a fire is built until a good bed of coals forms. A cast iron bean pot is lowered into the pit, covered over with dirt and allowed to cook, usually overnight. Several bean pits could keep beans cooking at all times. It was well known that beans were ideal sources of protein for hungry lumberjacks. Usually every Maine lumber camp featured a bean hole.
Love learning about New Hampshire? Check out Throw back Thursday
Research and Image Sources:
www.iowaagliteracy.wordpress.com
www.lovefood.com
www.researchgate.net
www.bmbeans.com
www.legendsofamerica.com/we-hillofbeans
