Classic Boston baked beans Ingredients: * 4 cups water * 3 strips thick-cut bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces * 2 cups dried small, white beans (navy beans), picked over and rinsed, soaked overnight and drained...

Sarah says,"...In honor of Beantown, I'll be making one of my favorite fall menus, Boston baked beans and Boston brown bread. If you've never had brown bread, it's kind of a variation on an English steamed pudding--a whole-wheat quickbread batter, flavored with molasses, is poured into an empty coffee can..."

I’m feeling all ‘home and hearthy’ today with the autumn temperatures. So, in keeping with the season, I am going to give you a little gift. Boston’s famous and historic Durgin-Park restaurant is known for many things: baked beans, clam chowder, prime rib. But possibly its most important regional dish is Indian pudding.

Baked beans is a dish consisting of beans baked (or, despite the name, usually stewed) in a sauce.Traditional cuisines of many regions claim such recipes as typical specialities, for example:Boston baked beansJersey bean crockGuernsey bean jarCassouletFeijoadaNew England baked beansQuebec-style baked beans are often prepared with maple syrup.Bean-hole beans, traditionally from Northern New England and Quebec, cooked in a covered fire pit in the ground for up to two daysBritish cuisine claims beans on toast as a teatime favourite, and baked beans may form part of a Full English breakfastBeans cooked in barbecue sauce (or a similarly flavoured sauce) are a traditional side-dish in a United States barbecue."Frank and beans", a recipe where hot dogs are cut up and cooked in the same sauce as the baked beans. Also referred to as "Beanee Weenee", the brand name under which it is sold by Van Camp's.Most commercial tinned baked beans such as Heinz are made from haricot beans, also known as Boston Beans or Navy Beans, a variety of Phaseolus vulgaris, and sold in a sauce. In the United Kingdom, tomato sauce is most commonly used. A similar dish is Pork and Beans.The popularity of baked beans may be due to the fact they are cheap to make and buy. British supermarkets may sell store brand baked beans for less than twenty pence a tinned can (Baked beans are a classic example of a "loss leader", a product sold by supermarkets for an abnormally low price, often less than cost. This is done because some products are thought by marketeers to be widely used as benchmarks by consumers to judge how cheap a supermarket is, or simply to boost the sales of complementary products. Another example of a typical loss leader is white sliced bread), but some premium organic brands may be as expensive as £1.50. Baked beans have recently begun appearing in conjunction with other foods, such as a filler inside sausages, as a sidedish with bacon, or as a pizza topping.