Maine State Library Digital Maine Agricultural and Seafood Marketing and Cook Economic and Community Development Books 1985 Maine Beans Maine Bureau of Agricultural Marketing Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalmaine.com/food_marketing Recommended Citation Maine Bureau of Agricultural Marketing, "Maine Beans" (1985). Agricultural and Seafood Marketing and Cook Books. 8. https://digitalmaine.com/food_marketing/8 This Text is brought to you for free and open access by the Economic and Community Development at Digital Maine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Agricultural and Seafood Marketing and Cook Books by an authorized administrator of Digital Maine. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LEAN AND HEARTY BEEF Cut the pork into quarter-inch cubes, dump l START YOUR YEAR WITH AND BEAN STEW in boiling water and drain at once. In medium­ BEANS TO START IT RIGHT For 4-6 servings: sized iron skillet, fry pork over medium heat until brown and crisp. Add beans and mash lVIAilfl • 1 1/2 cups Maine Jacob's Cattle Beans (3/4lb.) into the fat. As they cook, slowly incorporate Eating beans on New Year's Day is supposed to • 3/4 to 1 lb. Jean stewing beef, cut in small the liquid. Keep mashing, stirring and adding; bring good luck. New Englanders do it with baked cubes in about 10 minutes you should end up with a beans, while Southerners prefer red beans and rice • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil chunky paste about the texture of thick or Hoppin' John, a bean and rice dish based on black • 1 tablespoon butter mayonnaise. Season to taste with the chili eyed peas. In Japan, the festivities come in February BEANS • Flout powder and stir in the cheese shreds. Serve on "Bean throwing day," when politicians, actors • 2 large carrots, cut in half-inch slices bubbling hot - in a fondue po·t or small and popular sports figures toss dried beans to the • 1 large onion, peeled but left whole, stuck chafing dish if possible. waiting crowds. Hurriedly taken home, cooked and with 4-5 cloves eaten, these beans are supposed to bring long life • 1 large can (28 oz.) of peeled Italian style MAINEL Y BEAN SOUP and prosperity. tomatoes, chopped, with their juice WITH GREENS • 1 tomato can red wine (or water) • 1 1/2 cups Maine Yellow·Eye Beans • 1 tablespoon brown sugar (optional) • 1 large onion, chopped • Salt to taste • 2 small stalks celery • 3 tablespoons olive oil Soak and drain beans as described under • A hambone (optional) DRIED BEANS, "Cooking Beans." Dust beef with flour and • 2 quarts shredded mixed greens, not more A NUTRITIONAL BARGAIN fry in mixed oil and butter until brown. Add than half of them strong-flavored ones such everything else and, if necessary, add water as turnip greens, mustard or kale. Choose Though the protein they contain is not "com­ until liquid barely shows through top of beans. from these three plus dandelions, spinach, plete" by itself, beans need o11ly be combined Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer romaine lettuce, lamb's quarters, swiss with a small amount of wheat, rice, corn, meat, uncovered, stirring occasionally and adding chard, beet greens or other favorite nuts or dairy products to provide the same kind water if necessary, for about 2 hours, or until • 1/2 cup minced fresh parsley of high-quality protein as red meat, chicken or meat and beans are very tender and sauce is • 1/2 cup minced fresh basil or 1 tablespoon fish. Yet beans contain almost no fat, absolute­ nicely thickened. Fish out the onion, discard dried basil ly no cholesterol and are comparatively low in cloves, chop and return to stew. Serve with • 2 large garlic cloves, minced fine calories for the amount of goodness they pro­ biscuits or whole wheat bread or as a sauce for • Salt to taste vide. Beans are also an excellent source of pasta. This recipe contains very little fat, so it's • 1 to 1 1/2 cups grated parmesan cheese dietary fiber, B-vitamins and phosphorus. an excellent choice for those who would like to Soak and drain beans as described under watch their weight. "Cooking Beans." Heat olive oil in your BEAN PORRIDGE, ANYONE? soup pot and cook celery and onion in it over medium heat until they are transparent. Add On early 19th century New England farms, bean beans (and hambone) and 2 quarts cold water. porridge was one of the original convenience foods. DOWN EAST BEAN DIP Bring to boil, then reduce neat and simmer 1 First, dried beans were gently stewed with plenty hour or until beans are almost tender. Add of meat and corn until the mixture became a heart­ • 2 1/2 cups flavorful cooked beans (use baked shredded greens, in order of toughness, and warming whole. Then, bowlsful were set outdoors beans, spicy soldiers, chili, or canned beans) cook about half an hour more, or until all • 1/4 lb. lean salt pork greens are tender and the beans are falling until frozen, slipped from the molds and hung by • About 1/2 cup liquid- beer, tomato sauce, apart. Stir in parsley, basil and garlic and cook string loops from the rafters of the kitchen shed. bean-cooking liquid or broth about 5 minutes more. Add salt to taste and Slices were sawed off and reheated as needed. Con­ • 1 teaspoon chili powder or more to taste serve at once, with the cheese on the side for sidered best when slightly aged, this was a direct • 1 cup shredded natural sharp cheddar cheese sprinkling. Even without the hambone, this is descendant of the ' 'pease porridge in the pot, 9 days • Corn chips, crisp vegetables and/or crackers, hearty enough to be a meal when served with old,'' sung in the familiar nursery rhyme. for dipping crusty French bread, or fresh cornbread. Many Mainers no longer prepare their own QUICK SOAK: Cover the beans with 3 cups minutes to remove excess salt. Drain and cut in beans, depending on ready-made varieties. half. MAINE DRY BEANS boiling water for each cup of beans. Boil for 1 Sometimes these are a family recipe, prepared minute, then remove from heat. Allow to soak Put half of the meat, rind down, on the Hundreds of varieties of the new world bean, by a local storekeeper or farmers' market at least 1 1/2 hours, or until they are fully re­ bottom of your beanpot. Combine 1 cup of phaseolus vulgaris, grow in the United vendor, but usually they are the canned variety. constituted. bean-liquid with the mustard, syrup and pep­ States, each region having traditional favorites This is also a fine old Maine tradition - per, then mix it into the parboiled beans. best suited to local growing conditions. Many America's first canned baked beans were put TO COOK: Drain and measure soaked beans, Transfer this to the beanpot and bury the onion experts feel that northern climate and soil give up in Portland, in 1875. then cover with 2 cups of fresh water for each right in the middle. Pour in just enough addi­ the beans of New England a particularly fine cup of beans. Don't add salt until the end as it tional bean-liquid or water to barely show flavor. The Maine specialties, Yell ow Eye, SERVING SUGGESTIONS toughens the skins. Bring liquid to just below a through the top layer of beans. Cap with the re­ Soldier and Jacob's Cattle beans, are all heir· boil and simmer, partially covered, until the maining meat, set rind side out. Cover and loom types that date from Colonial times. Homemade, canned or from the grocer's beans are tender and liquid has mostly cooked bake 6-8 hours in a very slow (250 degree) oven, beanpot, baking the old-fashioned way is only away, usually 45 minutes to an hour. Stir only adding boiling water if necessary to keep the Maine's native Americans were the state's one of many ways to enjoy the flavor and good­ enough to prevent sticking. beans from drying out. Uncover for the last first bean-lovers. They taught the colonists how ness of nutritious, economical dried beans. hour so the top can get brown and crisp. Don't to plant bean vines among the cornstalks and Chili, spiced from mild to hot to blistering, has BAKED BEANS forget the brown bread to go with it. reap maximum nourishment from the harvest a growing number of partisans. Bean soup, by eating succotash, beans and corn cooked to­ flavored with a hambone and plenty of pepper, There are two kinds of baked bean fanciers, gether. Succotash was an Indian staple as were is so popular in the U.S. Senate dining room the Sweets and the Unsweets. (The Sweets cite SWEET AND SPICY baked beans and corn bread. Even the native that there's a law against removing it from the the earliest baked beans, made by the Native cooking method, the beanhole, was adopted by SOLDIER BEANS, menu. No picnic would be complete without a Americans and seasoned with maple syrup, as WITH SAUSAGE AND the newcomers. (A beanhole is a pit dug in the sweet/sour 3-bean salad and beans are also an proof that theirs is the only right way. The Un­ Maine ground where a fire is burned down to coals. excellent hot vegetable to serve instead of sweets rely on such early cookbooks as Lydia SOUR CREAM The coals are removed, a pot of beans put in, potatoes. Try them simply seasoned with Child's The American Frugal Housewife, For 4-6 servings: produces.