Vegetarian Baked Beans

Rabbi and food historian Gil Marks has traced some unlikely American staples to Jewish origins. Among them: Pasta, yogurt with fruit, and sitcoms. So it should not come as much of a surprise to learn that baked beans, too, came from members of the Tribe. Marks writes in The World of Jewish Cooking and Encyclopedia of Jewish Food that the sweet, tender beans were first cooked by Sephardic Jews, and the Pilgrims picked up the recipe in Holland en route to the New World.Marks’ research shows that the dish began as a cholent recipe called shkanah in Arabic. The Sephardic Jews living in the Netherlands adapted their Middle Eastern stew to use local ingredients like fava beans, honey or molasses, and goose fat. The Shabbat meal that could cook in residual heat from a hearth or oven appealed to the Pilgrims, who as Puritans also refrained from lighting fires on the Sabbath.

Soon after they arrived at Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrims adjusted the recipe once again. The dish soon included such New Englander ingredients as white beans and pork. In the Boston area, molasses flowed because of the rum industry. This may explain how the dark sugar cane product became the main sweetener on the standard ingredient list.

Here is a version of baked beans that evolves the dish a bit further, using all pareve ingredients and bringing back honey. Instead of animal fat, the richness comes from olive oil. This is probably what the Sephardic Jews used in the dish’s very first incarnation.

Try this at your next barbecue or picnic, or as a side dish for Shabbat lunch.