Are the Bake Beans Realy Good In Boston are is that a Myth?

[Jimrob1]

Originally Posted by TomDot

The only thing that I can figure is that Boston was a leading producer of molassas.

Boston was a leading producer of Molasses. My grandfather use to tell me about the Great Molasses Flood of 1919 in the North end. A huge vat of molasses broke loose and flooded the streets around it killing 21 people. I was so young at the time when he was telling me, and now his story is a vague memory to me. So before I wrote this I looked it up on the net to make sure it wasn't just some childhood dream I had. I was amazed I actually remembered this bizarre incident and it actually did happen. It just shows how one word molasses can trigger a memory and the people we remember so fondly.

[Crematia]

No, Boston isn't known for it's beans nowadays. There's beans on the menu at a few places in the Lowell/Chelmsford/Billerica area. A lot of places sell and serve Cote's beans, I believe they come from Dracut. Demoulas sells them as well. I've made my own, ham hocks and beans, it takes a looong time but it's really good.

[CityGirl52]

YES, Saturday night "suppah" in the various neighborhoods around the city of Boston when we were kids growing up was the canned "brown bread" "baked beans" & of course the essem "hot dogs" AND don't forget a lot of us had the "roxbury rolls" with this meal too, every single Saturday night in the winter time. Do you know where these particular rolls came from? No, not roxbury they were from the supermarket, where else LOL!!! A lot of us called them the "roxbury rolls" in the city growing up there because the Boston firemen (a lot of our friends parents were either firemen, police or worked for utilities or the "navy yard" working longshore) so these firemen started us all on them around parts of the city. Several of them worked in Roxbury at various firehouses but lived in another part of the City 9 times out of 10, so there you go, that's where they came from, even though they came from the supermarket. The firemen are some of the BEST cooks around, trust me! These rolls had to be a part of the brown bread, baked beans & hot dog meal or it wasn't Saturday night "suppah" in our house! They were the rolls that you break apart, you've seen them I bet, something like the famous "Parka House" rolls only there were more of them in this package & these are a little bigger than the others out, you can't miss them in the frozen section. You needed a roll like this to soak up the molasses. So there's a method to our madness, I'll have you know!

Speaking of molasses...my parents always talked about the "Great Boston Molasses Flood" too. Especially my father because he was 10 years older than my mother, so he actually remembered it even though he was 4 years old. A lot of people from that generation that lived in the North End and Charlestown swear that you could always still smell the molasses over on Commercial Street/Atlantic Avenue on hot summer days! Whether you can or not is another story, I never could, but a lot of them in that generation swore that you really could. I heard it enough to believe them! There's a fantastic book out about it, it's a really good account of it. It's called "Dark Tide: The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919" written by Stephen Puleo. Get it some day, you won't believe how it all happened & also what happened because of this terrible disaster:

Dark Tide is the definitive account of America's most fascinating and surreal disaster." —John Marr, San Francisco Bay Guardian

Shortly after noon on January 15, 1919, a fifty-foot-tall steel tank filled with 2.3 million gallons of molasses collapsed on Boston's waterfront, disgorging its contents as a fifteen-foot-high wave of molasses that briefly traveled at thirty-five miles an hour. Dark Tide tells the compelling story of this man-made disaster that claimed the lives of twenty-one people and scores of animals and caused widespread destruction.


Okay, just my two cents & then some, good night!