Heinz baked beans

"There is perfection in a can of Heinz baked beans. The contrast between the bland bean and its sweet sauce; the reassuring uniformity of a commercial recipe; the timeless design of the turquoise and black label; the perfect ratio of bean to sauce, and the way the brick-red gunge magically suspends its cargo of little haricots on the fork." Nigel Slater

It's a time of year for elaborate food, so tonight we are having sausages and baked beans - the ultimate lazy comfort food. And the beans will be Heinz, because I admit that, like Nigel Slater, I'm a sucker for Heinz baked beans as opposed to other cheaper varieties - though I do only buy them when they are on a special - and to make matters worse I only buy the English recipe version. It's obviously a nostalgia thing.

The Guardian did a taste test of all the competition in England, which is useless for here of course. For the record, they gave their prize to Morrison's with Waitrose a runner-up. I have bought other makes but it's really difficult to do a taste test isn't it? I mean you're not going to have half a dozen different varieties of beans all at once are you? So I can't really remember whether one is better than another. And so I go on eating Heinz.

In England they apparently have over 70% of the market. Not sure what the proportion is here.

"The Heinz bean is the great immovable object in canned foods. In its ubiquity, it defines how we expect baked beans to taste, but without excelling in its field. Sweet and tomatoey, gently earthy, calculatedly bland, Heinz beans are an immediately familiar and comforting convenience food but, if you scrutinise their flavour, a steadfast 6/10 experience." Tony Naylor, The Guardian

But Heinz, of course is not an English company - although, being a patriotic Britisher - child of the Empire, when I went to America at the age of 20 or so, I was amazed to discover that Heinz was in fact American. And lots of other companies too. Nevertheless it seems to be the English who have embraced the baked bean most completely. They are now made in a factory in Wigan where they produce over a billion cans a year. It's one of the largest food processing factories in Europe. Although I don't remember seeing them in France or Italy. Difficult to imagine the French and the Italians eating them. They have their own 'rubbish' foods. And no, they are not baked, but stewed. The raw beans and sauce are sealed into the cans and then cooked in massive pressure cookers. Indeed nowadays the word baked has been dropped from the can. They are just beans.

They were first made back in 1896 (or 1901 depending on which article you read) and first sold in England in Fortnums - which is ironic really because Fortnum and Masons is sort of the pinnacle of expensive grocery stores and yet baked beans is a food of the people. Before World War 2 they included pork, but since then the pork has been dropped. Well you can get lots of different versions of canned beans, some of which include meats and other flavourings, but I'm talking about your basic baked bean here.

There are two other advertising things of note. The 57 varieties was a number picked out of the air by the founder of the company - H. J. Heinz (son of German immigrants), even though, at the time, the company made around 60 different things - and no doubt now they make many more. He thought the 7 had an element of luck about it. And that very famous advertising slogan 'Beanz meanz Heinz' was cooked up over a coffee in London by an advertising man. I hope he got paid lots for it.

Oh and a third thing. The Who had a song about baked beans and some of the cover art for the record was of Roger Daltrey in a bath of baked beans. It looks revolting. He claims he got pneumonia from sitting in the beans because they were so cold. They apparently got a lot of criticism for selling out to commercialism. I doubt they cared.

They used to live in the same block of flats as my husband before we were married. We would see them occasionally. They had a beautiful 'wardrobe dog' - an Afghan.

Going back to that trip to America which I made with a girlfriend when we were students. We had very little money and were working as shopgirls in Woolworths in Philadelphia, living in a bedsit in the twilight zone of town. A regular dinner was baked beans and baked potatoes. We reckoned it was relatively healthy. We would also have an apple perhaps for the fresh fruit component of our diet. Indeed beans are very nutritious - I think I found this out in a previous blog. Just about the most nutritious thing you can eat I think. So no wonder it is a favourite of the poor.

Heinz was eventually bought up by Berkshire Hathaway (I think that's Warren Buffet isn't it?) and merged with Kraft to become just about the largest food company in the world. We shouldn't support them by eating their beans really. But I do like them with my sausages. And for a quick meal nothing beats beans on toast does it?

"On toast, they are nothing short of sheer culinary genius. They are, I would argue, at their point of perfection when you can catch them just at the point when the sauce is on the verge of soaking through the bread, so that you get both slightly soggy dough yet still a hint of crispness. (There they go again.) Then there are those last few crumbs from the blackened crust, and then the final bean and its smudge of sauce. As I said, perfection." Nigel Slater

And yes of course you can make your own. And I have. But it's a long slow process, and frankly they don't taste as good. Well they taste very different.