Today, we are going to be talking about Yankee food (and I don’t mean hot dogs at the ball park). To understand Yankee food, you have to answer the question, “What is a Yankee?” To people in the Western Hemisphere, a Yankee is someone from North America (think “Yankee, go home!”). To North Americans, Yankees live in the United States. To Americans, a Yankee is someone above the Mason-Dixon line. People in those northern states would say a Yankee is someone who lives in New England. To New Englanders, a Yankee lives in Vermont. And Vermonters would say a Yankee is someone who eats apple pie for breakfast…
… or maybe baked beans and brown bread. This recipe was given to me by an old friend whose family had been in New England so long that they had land that had been given to them as payment for service in the war — you know, the Revolutionary War.
Food can reach back and teach us about the past. In those early days when white folks first settled New England, they ate what they could grow. Beans were (and still are) cheap and filling, and meat was used sparingly. This bread uses modest amounts of wheat, which was less available than other grains, contains no precious oil or butter, and is steamed in the manner of old English puddings. The result is a delicious, hearty and healthy meal and a lesson in American history.
Nancy’s Boston Baked Beans
Warning! This makes a massive amount of beans. Feed your family. Feed your neighbors.
Ingredients:
One onion, quartered
2 lbs. Jacob Cattle Beans, or other small white bean (I used Great Northern beans)
8 oz. salt pork (can substitute bacon if necessary)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup molasses
2 tsp. dry mustard
4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
Directions:
Soak beans overnight in a large pot with water covering the beans by two inches. In the morning, parboil the beans for 30 minutes or until the skins start to come off when you blow on them. Drain.
In large bean pot or dutch oven, place quartered onion, and cover with beans. Place salt pork on top of beans. Mix the sugar, molasses, mustard, pepper and salt with 2 cups boiling water. Pour mixture over the beans. Add more water to cover the surface of the beans. Cover the pot with a lid and bake at 300 degrees F for 6 hours or more, adding more hot water as the beans cook. Serve with brown bread (recipe below).
Brown Bread
This is traditionally made in old coffee cans, but coffee doesn’t come in cans so often anymore, so one has to improvise. Improvising makes real Yankees happy. Do not go to your local kitchen supply store and buy a fancy pudding mold. That would offend those thrifty folks, whose motto was “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.”
Ingredients:
1 cup yellow cornmeal
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup whole grain rye flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups buttermilk
1 cup molasses
1 cup raisins or dried currants
Directions:
Generously butter one 9×5 inch loaf pan or 2 clean 28 ounce tin cans. Mix first 5 ingredients in large bowl. Add buttermilk, molasses and raisins and stir well to combine.
Transfer batter to prepared loaf pan or divide between the two prepared cans. Butter a piece of foil and use it to cover the pan well, buttered side down. Secure with kitchen twine. Place loaf pan in a large wide pot (I used my stock pot). Pour enough water into pot to come halfway up sides of loaf pan or cans. Bring water to boil, then reduce heat to low. Cover pot and simmer until tester inserted into center of bread comes out clean, about three hours. Add more water to pot as necessary to keep water halfway up sides of pan or cans.
Remove pan or cans from pot. Cool bread in pan for 15 minutes before gently removing. Slice and serve, either warm or at room temperature. Brown bread is very good smeared with cream cheese.
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