The Baked Bean

by Elizabeth Kelly

When I first started on a sodium reduced diet, chips and snack foods were the first to go, followed closely by canned and processed foods. Not that I ate many processed foods. My mother grew up in farm country in south western Ontario. Fresh foods, cooked from scratch were the rule. Canned baked beans, brown beans as we called them were one of the few processed foods we ate.

To me they say camping. I vividly remember wieners and beans when camping. I can smell the camp fire and hear the sizzle of hotdogs in the pan when I eat baked beans. They were something we had often at home, as a convenience, for lunch. I remember my Dad opening a can for late night snack.

I was vaguely aware of what went into making them, the ingredients and how long they took to make but I don't recall ever making baked beans. When I came across a recipe in one of my low sodium cookbooks I was intrigued but a little disheartened as I needed ketchup or chili sauce, both processed foods with salt. It wasn't until I leaned how to make ketchup with no salt that I tacked baked beans.

They aren't hard to make baked beans, it just takes a long time, often taking up to 24 hours when you pre-soak the beans. Initially baking was an issue as they would cook too fast and I constantly had my hands in the oven, adding stock, stirring, to prevent burning. I eventually used a crock pot, which I am sure a real bean connoisseur would frown upon but for me, baked beans are more just than a sweet side with bacon and eggs. They are necessary. They freeze which means I can have them as easily as canned, my own brand of convenience, they really are easy to make, and they hold many memories for me.

To this day, baked beans take me back to camping, my Dad with his snack, and my Mom, somewhere in a distant vague memory, chanting:

Beans, Beans, they're good for your heart...