Bake Beans - Part Two - "Goddess"

Baked Beans

Part Two

"Goddess"

            It is probable, if an antiquarian, in New England, that thee has

            Walked by

            The old baked bean pot.

            “Did not happen to... no I did not”.

            Even notice it and you

            Are still land locked by the “Of course I do”

            Know what an old

            New England bean pot could be

            Should be

            And, of course, “is”?

            Princess.

            Didn’t your mother tell you?

            “Always put in more molasses with the mustard.”

            “Do not let the beans dry out.”

            “No dear; you never eat that.  Sit it aside with the spoon.”

            Fun With Food Maine says ‘pork belly’ and ‘fat back’.  That is salt pork today.

            “Suet”

            Is for the birds.

            If a Flicker is up side down on the bird feeder... is the bean pot up side down on the shelf in the summer kitchen?

            No... not the “MY” bean pot.  It is in the pantry.  I mean another... antiquarian... “THAT” bean pot; the “walked by”.  That is where I always find them:

            On a shelf.  By flashlight.  Up side down.

            “Did not happen to... no I did not”.

            Even notice it and you

            Are not I and I are a “you” that searches to

            Notice it and

            Time, in old New England, has stopped there.

            When I notice it (find it).

            The old bean pot.

            “Oh everyone now knows that is just stupid because no one at all ever uses a summer kitchen in addition to not even having a summer kitchen so all of the shelves are gone and so are all of the

            “Those were my grandmothers.”  Great grandmother’s?  Okay; great-great grandmother’s.  She turned them up... side... down... on the shelf after ‘washing them off’ (as opposed to “washing them”).  The little ones were for the children

            To take to school.

            “I didn’t know that.”

            “They ate baked beans at school?”

            What if they (the men) ate them (baked beans) at the edge of the field

            And the edge of the woods

            Every day:

            EVERY

            DAY.

            I look into the top of the jar (small ‘pint’ bean pot).  There is the ‘wedge’ of salt pork ‘set’ on top.  The pot is “warm” (hot).  Cupped in my glove hand I

            Eat with a (White) Pine chip “spoon” all of it (the baked beans)

            (The salt pork wedge)

            I toss the spoon in the fire

            And go back to work.

“Jed (Jediah), my youngest, brings dinner to us.  He eats with us too.”

            His bean pot is the same size as his father’s.  Just not quite as full.  Jediah packs the empty bean pots and takes them ‘back’.  They are washed off and ‘set’ up... side... down

            On the shelf

            In the summer kitchen

            Until tomorrow.

            One may make the beans in a bigger pot or... make the beans in the smallest pot.

            Depends on how many “Beans” you “Need”.  By looking at the pot... the beans are baked in... one may discern “HOW IT (that old bean pot) WAS USED”.

            I know; you don’t care

            And did not even know the old bean pots were

            There.

            Let alone... “used”.

            I didn’t develop my love, my adoration, my antiquarian fixation for “old” “USED” bean pots like I was making a home décor display to start a conversation with you about them.  No.  That never ever occurred to me because I was too long ago to long on my own wandering discernment that ‘Gee Wiz’ one may see a whole history program without commercials in the my flashlight beam upon the... turned up side down... old

            Bean pot.

            I have just never really been the same since then.  I find them.  I sell them: “Beauties”.  I always want them all... even though some of them are ‘not’ the ‘quite’ as:

            What?

            Well... I am most drawn to the old bean pots... and I am speaking... and have been speaking... of the ‘early’ ‘redware’ (earthenware ‘flower pot clay’), classic form New England bean pot... with the lead glaze on the inside.  Too.

            I don’t really ever explain this a lot to a lot of people (anyone).  Why?  They are just what they are; dandruff... people.  What I like my flashlight to find best is burnt black dripping old BAKED TO DEATH over and over... old bean pots.

            You want to have a real New England old CLASSIC bean pot?  Then find your flashlight hunting for that.  And you know it when you find it.  Goddess.  That bean pot is.  An old New England Goddess.

            The little perfect clean ones?  The children took them to school.  And back.  Each day... they were ‘washed off’ and ‘put away’.

            The little BAKED TO DEATH black ones?  Those were one man’s... one man... bean pot ...ever always baked to death everyday with just his ‘handful’ of beans baked

            Every day

            He did:

            That man did.  Himself.  Alone. 

Keep that in mind.

(Alone with your bean pot... in old New England).  Peter Rabbit (Part One); I still have his bean pot.  It just hasn’t sold.  I guess.

            Funny things happen on the way to the garage sale.  Porch sale.  A porch sale is different than a garage sale.  They may be MUCH more interesting.  To have a garage sale one must have a ...garage.  And let people ‘go in it’ ‘back there’.  A porch sale is a ‘old way’ (envision the House of Seven Gables) where... one of the houses ‘on the street’ at the ‘upper end’ ‘past the common’ would ‘haul’ items out on to their (front) porch and ‘sell them’; a ‘porch sale’.  It should be pretty obvious why a porch sale has better antiquarian prospects than a ‘garage sale’.  But it is, for this topic; old New England bean pots... a ‘long haul’ from the summer kitchen to the front porch to get the “that old thing”; great... great... grandmother’s “OLD BEAN POT” up there, out there and ‘sold’.  It is not like they stored the bean pot in the front hall.  Right?

            I don’t really expect an old New England redware bean pot to be in a front porch ...sale... or... even on the ...front porch.  So I go to this sale.  Anyway.  One morning:  “I STOPPED”.  It was a porch sale.  I went up (the front steps)  They had nothing.  I was leaving.  But.  Against the wall... back past the far window.  ‘Setting’ there.  Was a ‘big one’; a big (4 quart; a gallon?) old style classic New England redware bean pot... that had been repeatedly painted blue and green... over the last... century... where (and when) it was used for ‘decoration’ to ‘hold flowers’ (?)

            A five dollars later it was mine including the “THAT PAINT IS PEELING” conversation... thrown in for free.

            It’s a great old pot:  Huge.  Used forever.  Early.  Perfect.  And on that front porch for a century TOO.  I bet they painted and put that pot out there in the 1890’s.  Maybe even before.  Like I said; “Goddess”:

            An old New England Goddess.