Alice Smith LaChance
Excerpts from NA2218, Marie McCosh Alpert, “Baked Beans and Bean-hole Beans As Experienced in Maine Families.” Paper for ANT 422, Professor Sandy Ives, 1992.
Alice Smith LaChance, born in 1914, Old Town, Maine:
Beans were a big staple in our family. Mom had 14 children–8 that lived. On Saturday night we always had a huge, humungus pot of beans. Mom made her own brown bread, to have with the beans. On Wednesday night we had the leftover beans. She heated them up and we ate them again, with more brown bread. We never had anything else with them–no salads or anything. But we didn’t eat tossed salads then, like we do now. My father always had a big garden and Momma used to can all our vegetables. In the summer sometimes Mom would make potato salad, but never with beans…Beans were a cheap dish then. Now they are no longer cheap–they are expensive. Beans have become a company dish.
Bean preparation: Soak the beans Friday night. On Saturday morning, parboil them–”bring the beans to a boil, then pour the water off.:” Add molasses and dry mustard. No onion (as an adult she heard of recipes where people added onion, but her mother never did). Salt pork– “don’t forget the salt pork!” The beans cooked all day Saturday in the wood stove, both summer and winter.
Mother had a great big crock (18 inches from the floor, 18-20 inches in diameter) full of salt-pork. It had some kind of liquid in it. I guess salt pork didn’t spoil. My sister and I did the dishes. Mother cleared the table, put the food away and washed the tins. We had to do the dishes and we fought about doing that. We all used to sing this song when we were kids:
Peas and beans are a musical fruit.
The more you eat the more you toot.
The more you toot the better you feel,
And then you’re ready for another meal.