Maine Folklife Center cited in BDN article on bean-hole bean tradition
Information from the Maine Folklife Center at the University of Maine was included in a Bangor Daily News article about the state’s bean-hole bean tradition. Making bean-hole beans the old-fashioned way — by baking them for hours in cast-iron pots buried in the ground — is a Maine food tradition that is woven into the state’s history and heritage, the article states. “The bean was an integral part of the Native American diet,” according to the Maine Folklife Center’s online bean-hole bean history. “Often called the ‘poor man’s meat,’ beans are rich in protein, supplying a third of the essential amino acids to the corn, bean and squash trinity. In the northeast, Boston would not be called ‘Bean-town’ if it weren’t for the beans adopted from the Native American custom of cooking beans and maple syrup with bits of venison or fish or corn.”