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Baked Beans, Vegetarian
1 pint pea beans 1/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 tablespoon salt 1/4 teaspoon pepper 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard 1 small onion, minced 1/2 cup Karo, Blue Label 1/3 cup Mazola Soak the beans over night. In the morning, drain and boil till the skins begin to loosen, in water containing the soda. Drain, combine with the other ingredients in an earthenware casserole. Cover, bake slowly two hours, adding water as necessary; uncover to brown.
A brand-promotion recipe built to replace the salt pork and molasses of a New England bean pot with two corn products. It works, but the timing and the soda need attention.
- Pea beansThese are what most shops now sell as navy beans. A pint dry is about 2 cups, roughly a pound, which yields six generous servings.
- Karo, Blue LabelBlue Label was one of the lighter grades in Karo's line (the palest was sold as Crystal White); substitute light corn syrup. Half a cup is quite sweet for a pound of beans, so taste before baking if you prefer a savoury pot.
- MazolaCorn oil, still sold under that name. A third of a cup stands in for the salt pork, and any neutral oil will do the same job.
- The baking sodaA quarter teaspoon in the parboil raises the pH and loosens the skins, which is exactly what the recipe wants. Overdo it and the beans turn slippery and soapy-tasting, and alkali destroys some of the thiamine. Where the water is soft, and with a good overnight soak, it can be left out.
- Slow ovenBake slowly -- The recipe gives no temperature; a slow oven was generally reckoned somewhere in the region of 275-325F. The pot goes in covered.
- Two hours is optimisticUnless the parboil has already taken the beans nearly to tender, expect three to four hours at 300F. Old dry beans take longer still. Judge by a bean crushed against the roof of the mouth, not by the clock.
- Adding waterCheck every 45 minutes and top up with boiling water to keep the beans just submerged; cold water added to a hot pot stalls the cooking.
- Uncover to brownThe last 30 to 40 minutes, lid off, so the surface caramelises and the liquid reduces to a syrup. Do this too early and the top beans dry into pebbles.
- The potAn earthenware bean pot or any lidded casserole with high sides and a narrow mouth; the shape limits evaporation. A Dutch oven works if the lid seals.
Karo and Mazola were both products of the Corn Products Refining Company, and a book that calls for them by label name is a promotional cookbook he the sound of pamphlet or bound volume a manufacturer issued to teach cooks new uses for its goods. That explains the whole design of this dish: the traditional New England bean pot is salt pork and molasses, and here corn oil takes the place of the pork and corn syrup the place of the molasses, producing something meatless and, not coincidentally, made entirely of the sponsor's shelf. Vegetarian baked beans of this kind appeared frequently in early twentieth-century American cookery, though the reasons usually offered for their popularity dash the meatless-day campaigns of the First World War, the reform-minded vegetarianism associated with health sanitariums of the period dash are suggestions rather than documented causes for this particular recipe. Filing it under Luncheon may also be of its time: baked beans are often said to have been everyday midday fare rather than a dinner course, and the pot could go into a slow oven and be forgotten.