Food of the Gods...

Cold, wet afternoons - grey skies, grey television, grey blanket covering and keeping me warm - baked beans on toast for tea. Ah, baked beans, the foodstuff of memory.

My childhood was spent watching Blue Peter and eating beans on toast for tea. I think that I must have eaten beans on toast at least four times a week, maybe more. I loved them. Baked bean juice soaking into the buttered toast, slightly burnt toast, it had to be a little bit burnt – it tasted better. A couple of times a week I’d have spaghetti on toast, but baked beans were my favourite. Once in my teens as an experiment I tried a baked bean/spaghetti mix – never again, definitely a one-off gastronomic experience.

Back then Beanz really did Meanz Heinz, I guess there must have been other brands - but supermarket own brands were years away. I do seem to remember that the Co-op on the high street sold beans in light blue labelled cans, but the beans were pale, the juice all watery. Smedley, down at the little shop, sold Heinz – letting us buy our beans on tick as he wrote it down in the little red A6 exercise book, all to be paid for on a Friday - the same day as the Friday man came around with his black book.

They claimed to have 57 varieties, but I didn’t believe them – Smedley only had about 15 on his shelves and that included salad cream, ketchup, and oxtail soup.

The cowboys on TV ate beans. “Fine beans and bacon” they’d say, eating their beans from tin plates sitting by the chuck wagon, beans cooking in a hanging pot over the campfire. The cook’s name was always Chucky and he had a grizzled white beard and the injuns, or rustlers, or coyotes, or horse thieves were never very far away.

Yes, a million housewives every day (and Chucky) opened a tin of beans and said…well, you know what they said, and of course beans could be added to any dish to stretch the meal a little further – for when your kids bring their friends around unexpectedly.

These days I put pepper on my beans, occasionally vinegar, and dependent on my mood Worcestershire sauce – never ketchup though, beans and tomato ketchup aren’t complimentary for some reason. For a while I liked cheesy beans – I probably still do. (now there’s a thought!)

We get our beans from Aldi now, Aldi own brand and they are delicious, not enough salt, but then nothing has enough salt these days. I don’t have them for tea any more (unfortunately), but when I have a slight hangover or I’m feeling down, late sleepless nights, when I’m feeling snacky, beans on toast are my choice - real comfort food, the food from the grey blanket days of my childhood.

Yes, baked beans on toast – food of the Gods.