Pork and beans

A bowl of pork and beans

Pork and beans is a culinary dish that uses pork and beans as its main ingredients. Numerous variations exist, usually with more specific names, such as fabada asturiana,[1] olla podrida, or American canned pork and beans.[2]

American canned pork and beans

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Although the time and place of the first appearance of American canned pork and beans is unclear, the dish was well established in the American diet by the mid-19th century. The 1832 cookbook The American Frugal Housewife lists only three ingredients for pork and beans: a quart of beans, a pound of salt pork, and pepper.[3] Commercially canned pork and beans were introduced in the United States sometime around 1880. According to the 1975 Better Homes and Garden Heritage Cookbook, canned pork and beans was the first convenience food.

Today, the dish is "an American canned classic, [and] is recognized by American consumers generally as an article of commerce that contains very little pork."[4]

The recipe for American commercially canned pork and beans varies slightly from company to company, but generally consists of rehydrated navy beans packed in tomato sauce (usually made from concentrate and which may incorporate starch, sugar, salt, and seasoning), with very small chunks of salt pork or rendered pork fat.[5] The ingredients are cooked, packed into hermetically sealed containers, and processed by heat to assure preservation.[6]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Asturian Pork and Beans Recipe". Food and Wine. Archived from the original on 2008-02-14. Retrieved 2008-02-05.
  2. ^ "Full of Beans". Caterersearch. July 26, 2001.
  3. ^ The American Frugal Housewife. Project Gutenberg. p. 51. Archived from the original on 2005-11-29. Retrieved 2005-10-08.
  4. ^ "That's What and Beans? Pork Defends Its Image". The New York Times. April 1, 1998.
  5. ^ Siddiq, Muhammad; Butt, Masood S.; Sultan, M. Taurus; Sinha, Nirmal K.; et al., eds. (2010). "Dry beans: Production, Processing, and Nutrition". Handbook of Vegetables and Vegetable Processing. Wiley & Sons. pp. 545–64, 556. ISBN 978-0-8138-1541-1.
  6. ^ Agricultural Marketing Service (2006). "United States Standards for Grades of Canned Pork and Beans". United States Standards for Grades of Canned Dried Beans. USDA. p. 12. Archived from the original on 2010-03-07. Retrieved 2013-04-09.