Yankee Magazine editor Edie Clark shares the history of regional food

Bean-hole baked beans, johnny cakes, fish chowder and red flannel hash are foods that can bring people back to New England faster than any airplane, says Edie Clark of Yankee Magazine.

Most of the people in the room raised their hands when she asked if they had tried these foods before her talk at the Governor John Langdon House in Portsmouth last week. The program was one of several ways Historic New England continues to celebrate its “Year of the Kitchen.”

There was a time when signature New England dishes were on most menus in the region, and Clark explained how that has changed, though people still sometimes eat traditional foods. She called the region a place “where so much began and remains.”

Foods help define a region, Clark said. New England food, like its people, was hard-working and practical, she said. It was made from the sea and the earth with ingredients that were on hand, such as maple syrup and fiddleheads in spring.      

Clark named three people who had enormous influence over and understanding of the regional diet. These were Fannie Merritt Farmer, Julia Child, of course, and Haydn S. Pearson. Each wrote cookbooks with their own flavors.

Farmer studied at the Boston Cooking School and her writing was as dry as a chemistry book, but accurate. She standardized measurements, which made more confident cooks, Clark said. She also wrote about menus, manners, and various household tasks. 

The book has never been out of print, but it has been updated to reflect the more varied tastes of modern times. Part of the reason for that change is Child, who mastered the art of French cooking and went on to share it with America on her television show “The French Chef.”

Clark told behind the scenes stories about Child, such as the oven that produced an electric shock in one episode, causing her to “clutch her breasts in an unseemly way.” The show helped otherwise insecure cooks expand their repertoire, further emboldening the region to cook like professionals. Clark calls Child a New England treasure, “a symbol of who we were and who we would like to become.”

Pearson, born in New Hampshire, was a nature writer with a real passion for food and his New England home. His book included his family history along with recipes that had long, laborious descriptions that Clark compared to love songs. He could even make fried cornmeal mush sound exquisitely delicious. He emphasized experience over experimentation. “He believed, with all his heart and soul, New Englanders knew best how to cook,” Clark said.

Clark has written her own book about the region’s food, with experience from hundreds of the region’s kitchens and church halls, called “Saturday Beans and Sunday Suppers.”

bean-hole baked beans

ingredients
• 1 pound dried beans (yellow eye or pea beans)
• 1/4 pound salt pork, cut up
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 cup molasses

directions
• Pick over the beans, remove any bad ones and take out any pebbles, then wash beans. Soak beans overnight, covered in water. Meanwhile, dig a two-foot-wide and at least two-foot-deep bean hole to have it ready for the next day. Collect eight to ten fist-size rocks, along with softwood, like pine or hemlock.

• The next morning, add water to the beans to cover, and parboil them until the skins pop when you blow on them (about 20 minutes). Fill the bean hole about 3/4 full of wood and light a fire. Place the rocks on top, and add more wood.

• Drain the beans. In a large iron pot that has a flared cover, put in a layer of salt pork, half the beans, the rest of the salt pork, and the rest of the beans. Mix the mustard, salt, and pepper into the molasses, and pour into the pot. Fill the pot with hot water, just to cover the beans. Place a brown paper shopping bag between the pot and its top to make a seal.

• When the fire has burned down to red-hot coals and the rocks are red hot (after 1 hour), use a long-handled spade to push the rocks to one side of the hole. Carefully set the pot into the hole so it’s level. Nestle the rocks around the pot, and use one large hot rock to weight the top.

• Cover the pot and hole with four to six inches of soil with the lid on tight, and let it cook for 8 hours. Shovel off the dirt and remove the pot. If the beans seem dry, add a little boiling water and let it set in before eating.

Yields six to eight servings.

recipe from Yankee magazine online

She would be a misplaced soul living outside of New England, she said. “The simplicity of New England food is what distinguishes it, just as it does its people,” Clark said. “It’s food, the taste and the smell, even hearing the words brings us home.”

Upcoming events in the “Year of the Kitchen” program include a jazz brunch on Sunday, June 28, at the Governor John Langdon House. The program supports Historic New England’s publication of “America’s Kitchens,” a roughly 200-page paperback with nearly as many historic photos, illustrations and vintage advertisements. It sells for $34.95.

For more about Historic New England’s kitchen programs or to register, visit www.historicnewengland.org. There are also recipes online, added monthly.