The Distinctly Regional History of Boston Baked Beans

18th Century historianJon Townsendof Townsends took a look backat the historical distinctly northeast favorite of Boston Baked Beans. He further notes how the first recipe, though nebulous, seemed to have originated in the 19th century when cooking styles transformed from boiling to baking amongst the people that populated Massachusetts at the time.

Boston is at the center of these events this is the political sort of heartbeat of the late18th century in early America. ...What kind of food are people in Boston eating?...The most obvious answer here are bakedbeans Boston baked beans. Those are so famous in the 19th centuryand they're still famous today now baked beans have this very very hard to decipher history.

Ryan Kerr jumped in at that time to demonstrate and prepare a classic recipe for the dish, although the definition of beans at that time was rather wide.

Let's talk about beans really quickly. So in the time period there's an adjustment that's happening.... here in this new world it gets morecomplex than that too because folks in this time period are interchanging peas and beans. We'renot necessarily talking about green garden splitpeas we're talking about all sorts of varietiesof peas. So something even like a black eyed pea is a bean in the time period. When people are talking about it, they don't necessarily designate when they're talking about them in recipes.