Liz Marcy spills the beans on an enduring, and surprisingly versatile, family favourite.
The British are just mad about baked beans. A staggering 1.5 million cans of them are eaten every day. People raise money for charity by sitting in bathtubs full of them and the record for the Number of Baked Beans Consumed in Five Minutes Using Only a Cocktail Stick features in The Guinness Book of Records. We eat them alongside our bacon for breakfast, over a jacket potato at lunchtime and on hot, buttered toast for tea.
But even though they're still on the menu, they're the stuff of nostalgia too - whether for student days, when they were the secret ingredient in everything from veggie lasagne to chilli con carne, or for Saturday teas of childhood. One would hope that not too many people were required to eat them with ginger biscuits mixed in - an early and bold culinary experiment of my brother's that my godmother, who was babysitting, insisted I ate.
The brand of choice is, of course, Heinz. In fact, beanz meanz Heinz, as their 1967 slogan had it. And we believed it. The British are more loyal to Heinz Baked Beans than they are to any other brand, the distinctive turquoise of the label has been given trademark status, and they were even chosen as one of the products that best represents Britain in a 1998 poll to determine the contents of a time capsule for London's Business Design Centre.
Even though Heinz was founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1875, Britain's close relationship with the brand is hardly surprising. It was here that Henry James Heinz made his first overseas sale in 1886, and here that the company's first overseas factory was established, in Peckham in 1905. In the Sixties and Seventies, the uk subsidiary accounted for more than 50 per cent of the firm's business, and now, just for us, it has launched the 'Baked Bean Cuisine' range of frozen meals for those who like to give themselves the occasional break from all that hectic tin-opening.
So, it would seem that my brother had the right idea all those years ago, after all. Heinz Baked Beans and ginger biscuit pizza anyone?