Editing Baked beans (section)

==Origin==
[[File:beanpots.jpg|thumb|right|Three beanpots used for cooking [[Cooking#Home-cooking vs. factory cooking|homemade]] baked beans. The small one is [[Ceramic glaze|glazed]] with the letters "Boston Baked Beans".]]

The origins of baked beans are traced to the [[first peoples]] of the [[Americas]] who began preparing beans using the method of soaking and baking them during [[ancient history]]. Evidence of preparing beans in this manner date back to c. 1500 BC in the [[Maya civilization]].<ref name="Mayan">{{cite book|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QIFTVWJH3doC&dq=%22baked+beans%22+%22native+american%22&pg=PA31|chapter=Beans|title=Encyclopedia of American Indian Contributions to the World: 15,000 Years of Inventions and Innovations|first1= Emory Dean|last1= Keoke|first2= Kay Marie|last2= Porterfield|year= 2009|isbn=9781438109909|publisher=[[Facts On File]]|page=31}}</ref> Beans, often prepared with peas and pork, are among the longest-established [[England|English]] recipes, and English colonisers brought the dish to North America.<ref name=NEC/>

In the northeast of America various Native American peoples, including the [[Iroquois]], the [[Narragansett people|Narragansett]] and the [[Penobscot]],<ref>{{Cite web |title=The secret history of baked beans |url=https://www.lovefood.com/galleries/97568/the-secret-history-of-baked-beans |access-date=2022-10-16 |website=lovefood.com |language=en}}</ref> mixed beans, maple sugar, and bear fat in earthenware pots which they placed in pits called "bean holes" which were lined in hot rocks to cook slowly over a long period of time.<ref name="hole">{{cite web|url=https://umaine.edu/folklife/history-of-bean-hole-beans/|title=History of Bean-Hole Beans|access-date=April 15, 2025|author=Maine Folklife Center|publisher=[[University of Maine]]}}</ref><ref name="Tavern">{{cite book|year=1999|title=City Tavern Cookbook: 200 years of Classic Recipes from America's First Gourmet Restaurant|author=Walter Staib|page=115|publisher=Running Press|location=London}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Common Grounds Bean Hole Beans|url=https://www.mofga.org/events/recipes/common-grounds-bean-hole-beans/|access-date=2021-09-03|website=Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners|language=en-US}}</ref> The bean hole cooking method later became a tradition in Maine that was practiced in logging camps where beans prepared in this way were served as every meal.<ref name="hole"/> A fire would be made in a stone-lined pit and allowed to burn down to hot coals, and then a pot with 11 pounds of seasoned beans would be placed in the ashes, covered over with dirt, and left to cook overnight or longer.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.mofga.org/Default.aspx?tabid=659 |title=Common Ground's Bean Hole Beans |website=Mofga.org |access-date=2 November 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130307120218/http://www.mofga.org/Default.aspx?tabid=659 |archive-date=7 March 2013 }}</ref><ref name="hole"/>

British colonists in [[New England]] were the first westerners to introduce  their version of the  dish to the area, and were quick to adapt the Native American version because it was very similar to   [[pease pudding]] and because the dish used ingredients native to the New World.<ref name="Tavern"/><ref>{{cite book|title=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures: New England|page=xviii|editor=Michael Sletcher|location=London|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2004}}</ref> They substituted molasses or sugar for the maple syrup, bacon or ham for the bear fat, and simmered their beans for hours in pots over the fire instead of underground.<ref name="Tavern"/> Each colony in America had its own regional variations of the dish, with navy or white pea beans used in Massachusetts, Jacob's Cattle and soldier beans used in Maine, and yellow-eyed beans in Vermont.<ref name="GE">{{cite book|title=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures: New England|pages=233–235|editor=Michael Sletcher|location=London|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2004}}</ref> This variation likely resulted from the colonists receiving the dish from different Native peoples who used different native beans.<ref name="GE"/>

While some historians have theorized that baked beans had originated from the [[cassoulet]] or bean stew tradition in Southern France, this is unlikely as the beans used to make baked beans are all native to North America and were introduced to Europe around 1528.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.kidcyber.com.au/food-history-a-timeline/|title=Food History: A timeline|website=Kid Cyber|access-date=16 August 2016}}</ref> It is possible that English colonists used their knowledge of cassoulet cooking to modify the cooking technique of the beans from the traditional Native American version, by soaking the bean overnight and simmering the beans over a fire before baking it in earthen pots in order to decrease the cooking time.<ref name= "NEC">{{cite book|title=America's Founding Food: The Story of New England Cooking|url=https://archive.org/details/americasfounding00stav|url-access=limited|author=Keith Stavely, Kathleen Fitzgerald|pages=[https://archive.org/details/americasfounding00stav/page/n63 51]–58|publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]]|year=2004|isbn=9780807828946 }}</ref> However, this method of soaking and boiling beans was already in practice in the Americas during the Mayan civilization, and was already a known method of preparing beans in the cultures of the first peoples of the Americas prior to European settlement.<ref name="Mayan"/>

A dish similar to baked beans, beans and bacon, was known in medieval England.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Brears |first=Peter |title=Cooking and Dining in Medieval England |publisher=Prospect Books |date=1 May 2012 |isbn=9781903018873|pages=260 |quote="Broad beans  were a major field crop in medieval England. Presumably they were eaten fresh in July and August, being boiled with bacon as they were up to the mid-twentieth century." ,""Drawn beans cook as in the first recipe, adding a large onion and a pinch of saffron""}}</ref><ref name="MW">{{cite news |author=Mark McWilliams |year=2012 |title=The Story behind the Dish: Classic American Foods: Classic American Foods |publisher=[[Greenwood Press]] |location=Denver, Colorado |page=11 |isbn=9780313385100}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Vogler |first=Penn |title=STUFFED: A HISTORY OF GOOD FOOD AND HARD TIMES IN BRITAIN |date=October 2024 |publisher=Atlantic Books |isbn=9781838955762}}</ref> The addition of onion and [[Mustard (condiment)|mustard]] to some baked beans recipes published in New England in the 19th century was likely based on traditional 17th  century cassoulet recipes from Staffordshire, England, which utilized honey and mustard cured hams, beans, and onions or leeks.<ref name= "NEC"/> These ingredients are still often added to baked beans today.<ref name= "NEC"/> Nineteenth-century cookbooks published in New England, spread to other portions of the United States and Canada, which familiarized other people with the dish.<ref name= "NEC"/>

=== American origin story === 
The modern recipe for American baked beans originated in the late nineteenth century as part of an effort to create a story of a National cuisine descended from the time of the [[Pilgrim Fathers]], when it was supposedly communicated to them by kindly natives. In reality, there is no evidence sweetened baked beans existed before the [[Victorian era]] and the recipe was influenced by sugar and [[molasses]] being newly available in abundance then.<ref name=truth-intro>{{cite book |title=The Truth about Baked Beans: An Edible History of New England |first=Meg |last=Muckenhoupt |year=2020 |publisher=New York University Press |isbn=978-1-4798-8276-2 |chapter=Introduction |pages=1-4}}</ref> Keith Stavely writes that there is no evidence that native Americans cooked beans using pots or holes in the ground, although it is possible that this method was employed, and so native bean preparation may have been an influence on American baked beans alongside the established English methods the settlers had brought.<ref name=NEC/>