Magic Beans

     When I was a kid, on summer Sundays, there was often company over for dinner – either my mother's relatives or some of my father's relatives. And Dad would grill while Mom made potato salad, usually a tossed salad, and a dish that we all would come to endearingly refer to as Mother Des Soye's Delicious Variation of Grandma Brown's Baked Beans.

     Grandma Brown was a brand name for commercially sold baked beans. We got them in cans off the shelf at the A&P. What we did not know at the time was that Grandma Browns Baked Beans were not sold throughout the whole country. When Mom and Dad moved to Florida, the beans were not on the Pilgrims Pride shelves there, nor are they sold where we live now, in Georgia!

     So much we had taken for granted helping ourselves to Grandma Browns Baked Beans back in those simpler times in Western New York!

     Well back then, Mom would open a big can of Grandma Browns Baked Beans and spoon the contents into a casserole bowl. Then she would add some ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, a chopped onion, and some molasses and mix them all together with the beans. Mom would smooth out the concoction, and on the very top she would put four strips of bacon. The casserole bowl went into the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour.

Within a few minutes of being put in the oven, a most wonderful smell of the beans cooking would permeate the house! And when the oven was opened to remove the finished product, the bacon was bubbling on top! A joy to the eyes, the ears, the nose!

     Now there are a few recipes of Mom's that just cannot be duplicated. Her potato salad is one glaring example; in fact, Mom refused to share her potato salad recipe because she feared people would be angry with her if they could not get it to taste just like hers! (She finally gave me the recipe for her potato salad one day when she was getting chemo and in a reflective mood – I did not want to appear overeager by hastening to get paper and pen to write it all down, so I endeavored to memorize it – since then I can make the potato salad and it almost tastes just like Mom's!)

     But Mother Des Soye's Delicious Variation of Grandma Brown's Baked Beans is a recipe that was not only lovingly shared, it is very easily duplicated, and, it tastes just like Mom's. In fact, I don't even have to put the ingredients together to taste those beans, all I have to do is think about them, and I can taste them and smell them exactly the way Mom made them!          They are that wonderful!

     These days, I might get a can of Grandma Brown's Baked Beans sent to me in a Christmas package from relatives still in Western New York. Or a can might come with family that visits occasionally. And when I get a can of Grandma Brown's Baked Beans here in my Georgia home, I put it on a shelf in the pantry and save it for a special occasion.

The last special occasion for which I opened the can of beans was the night before Amanda and Tony's wedding three years ago. The rehearsal dinner was in Athens, but there were lots of relatives around Lawrenceville not going to the dinner – so they were all invited to our house. There were of course lots of other goodies being served. But just before the guests arrived, I took the can of Grandma Brown's Baked Beans off the pantry shelf, opened it, and spooned the contents into a casserole bowl.

     Then I added some ketchup, mustard, brown sugar, a chopped onion, and molasses. That is what the jar of molasses in the cupboard is there for Mike. He sometimes asks why we have molasses in the house – the special baked bean recipe is the only reason why. I mixed everything together in the bowl, smoothed it out, and then lovingly placed four strips of bacon on the top. I put the dish into the oven at 350 degrees, and within minutes, the smell of wonderfulness permeated the house.

     And when the beans were removed from the oven the bubbling bacon touched all my senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, and the invoking of memories of family gatherings of the past mingling with the family gathering of the present turned on the fifth sense – I could feel the love!

     Mother Des Soye's Delicious Variation of Grandma Brown's Baked Beans are decidedly our family's version of the story of the magic beans!

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