Baked beans

Baked beans are a dish traditionally containing white common beans that are parboiled and then baked in sauce at low temperature for a lengthy period. Canned baked beans are not baked, but are cooked through a steam process. Baked beans occurred in Native American cuisine, and are made from beans indigenous to the Americas. It is thought that the dish was adopted and adapted by English colonists in New England in the 17th century and, through cookbooks published in the 19th century, spread to other regions of the United States and into Canada. However, the connection to Native American cuisine may be apocryphal, as legumes such as broad beans and lentils prepared in various sauces had been established in European cuisine long before the Middle Ages. Today, in the New England region of the United States, a variety of indigenous legumes are used in restaurants or in the home, such as Jacob's cattle, soldier beans, yellow-eyed beans, and navy beans . Originally, Native Americans sweetened baked beans with maple syrup, a tradition some recipes still follow, but some English colonists used brown sugar beginning in the 17th century. In the 18th century, the convention of using American-made molasses as a sweetening agent became increasingly popular to avoid British taxes on sugar. Boston baked beans use a sauce prepared with molasses and salt pork, a dish whose popularity has given Boston the nickname "Beantown".

Source: Wikipedia