Roland and Flora Boucher
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.
Orono, Maine:
Bean-hole beans taste better than regular baked beans. You don’t have to continually add water, which dilutes the flavor.. I use the recipe for baked beans in the Betty Crocker Cookbook, but “change it a little.”
First dig a hole, then line it with bricks and rocks. Roland’s bean hole is about one and a half feet wide and knee deep (that’s after it’s lined with rocks’). After it is full of coals and the bricks are hot, you dig out the coals. Put the bean pot down in the hole, cover it with the coals, then cover the coals with dirt. Tamp the dirt down until no steam escapes. Check the hole about 45 minutes later to be sure that no steam is escaping. If steam is escaping, then you have to add more dirt. Let the beans cook for 12 hours.
Cover the beans in the pot with 2 inches of water. Roland uses a cast iron pot that holds 5 pounds of beans. He makes bean hole beans 3-4 times per year. No special reason–”Just to have something to eat!” He freezes any leftovers, but usually does not have any.
It is important to build the fire properly. You must heat the hole from he bottom up. He starts the fire burning about 9 a.m. and usually puts the beans in the hole around 8 p.m. and then takes the beans out around 1 p.m. the next day. The beans are ready earlier– it takes about 12 hours to cook them properly. He cooks 2 pots at a time, that’s about 9 pounds worth.
He eats hot dogs, coleslaw slaw and rolls (“yeast rolls are good, but no one bakes them anymore so we have to use the rolls from the store. But they aren’t as good!”) with the beans.
Flora’s great uncle makes wonderful bean hole beans. He used to cook “in the woods.” He has his own secret recipe that he won’t share, except that he did teach Flora’s brother how to make the beans. Flora says “Roland’s beans are good, but his [the great uncle’s] are great!” Roland agrees.
The brother salts his own pork. “That probably accounts for part of the difference in flavor,” according to Roland. The Boucher’s use salt pork from the store. Flora says “My brother is fussy. He won’t buy just any beans. He only buys them from a farmer who grows them, and they have to be last year’s beans.” He always cooks for a good crowd. Serves salads and biscuits with his beans.
To fix the beans, first soak the beans overnight. “DO NOT parboil them. If you do you lose some of the flavor.” The type of bean makes a difference. Pea beans–Flora likes these best, but Roland thinks they aren’t as good. Yellow-eye beans–Roland prefers these; They stay firmer. Flora’s brother only uses yellow beans. Roland makes one pot of each type of bean to please everyone.
Ingredients: molasses, dark brown sugar, No onion (but the brother does put in an onion), salt pork (The best part! best if cured in brine. Some people use salt instead of brine to cure, but that’s not as good”), water (2 inches over the beans), beans, dry mustard, pepper and salt. Roland likes to cut up a raw onion and add it to his beans when he eats them. Neither Flora nor Roland use ketchup. Both agree that brown bread is good with beans. Roland shares his beans with his guys at work. Flora doesn’t like the beans reheated, “I do like a cold bean sandwich the next morning, though.”
The bean-hole pot is pot-bellied. It has 3 legs and a cover. It has a wire bale on top. You lift it in and out of the hole with a pipe that has a rod and hook on it. Two people can pick the pots up with the pipe.
According to Roland “The secret of the beans is all in the preparation–the seasonings used.”