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In New England, traditional Saturday night church suppers mean just one thing: baked beans and ham. Spying a roadside sign in any community is a signal to locals and visitors alike that they are in for a fantastic meal at a great price. These $5 dinners often feature beans as the main dish with a little ham on the side, and usually a few additional dishes, such as New England brown bread, coleslaw, and macaroni and cheese along with, of course, homemade pies of every sort for dessert. What could be better on an early spring night?

Tradition dictates that the beans never come from a can but are made the old-fashioned way: soaked in water overnight then slow-cooked in a pot with a variety of each cook’s top-secret additions. Here in northern New England the beans are usually a variation on the classic Boston baked beans, which are undoubtedly the best in the nation! Boston may be known for a lot of things, tea, politics and the Red Sox, but one of the best things to come from this city to our south is genuine, deep, dark and sweetly satisfying baked beans.

Nobody really knows how Bostonians first learned to bake beans, but beans slow-baked in molasses have been a favorite dish since Colonial days. Back then, housewives used molasses and salt pork and baked the beans in their ovens all day on Saturday so they would have a nutritious meal ready for Sunday when cooking and other work were strictly forbidden. Molasses was also a cheap form of sweetening and readily available; for many years the city was a storage place for molasses made from sugar cane harvested in the West Indies and used to produce rum in Boston. That longtime custom led to disaster during the Great Molasses Flood in 1919 when a huge tank holding molasses for rum production exploded, literally flooding the streets and killing 21 people and injuring 150 others. Despite the tragedy, Bostonians continued to cook with the sweet syrup and used molasses consistently in their recipes.

We’ve provided one of our favorite baked bean recipes. We start with a basic recipe for baked beans and make it our own by adding apples and both brown sugar and molasses, but, as we suggest with every recipe, experiment with making it your own. Your family may love a hint of cayenne pepper or some tomato paste or even ketchup. Try different options, but don’t forget that baked beans are always better the next day so make plenty!

If you’ve never tried brown bread, be sure to make this one. The delicious aroma alone is enough to hook you. The ham recipe is a favorite that we’ve been making for years, along with a recipe for cornbread. With these dishes any day is a good one for your very own ham and bean supper!