During the American Civil War (1861-1865), troops were supplied with canned pork and beans.
The canning process itself is somewhat older. Back in 1795, the French army offered a prize of 12,000 francs to the first person to invent a new method of preserving food. It had been recognized for some time that armies traveled on their stomachs, and those stomachs required ready and nutritious foodstuffs. A French chef by the name of Nicholas Appert stepped forward to meet the challenge. Using wrought-iron canisters (the origin of the term “can”), Monsieur Appert proved the new process in 1806 and became the Father of Canning. (There is some dispute here, and the Dutch may have invented a form of canning as early as 1772.) By whom and when, for those first cans, the soldiers had to use their bayonets to slice the metal casings open or bash the canned projectiles with vigor against unsuspecting rocks. You had to be hungry. By the Civil War, the process was hopefully more refined. The first can opener was patented in the United State in 1858. One suspects, however, that the line infantryman was the last to obtain the new invention. Pass the bayonet over here. it’s time to eat.
Today, Campbell Soup Company sells more than 100 million cans of its Pork and Beans a year. Although that is a lot of beans, it is not a lot of pork. Salt pork is apparently added to the dish for flavor, not substance. In 1996, after years of complaints, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recognized this condition, and to settle the matter once and for all beans, the official branch of the United States Government released the following approved and stamped administrative statement: “It has for years been recognized by consumers generally that the designation ‘beans with pork,’ or ‘pork and beans’ is the common or usual name for an article of commerce that contains very little pork.” And, that, literally, is no pork.
Although the artist Andy Warhol did many paintings, individually and in groups, of Campbell soup cans, I cannot find definitive pictorial documentation that he ever painted a can of Pork and Beans, whether manufactured by Campbell, Heinz or any of the other canners fond of beans and a bit of pork. I find it comforting that Andy, one of the leaders in the pop art movement, may have resorted to the comfort of a can of warmed Pork and Beans, perhaps served over toast points, and the reason he never painted the can was that he could never find one without the lid ripped off. Knowing Andy, he probably used a bayonet.
By and away, they say you should heat the canned pork and beans before eating. Mom and I never did. I was just a kid. We’d sit at the kitchen table for a mid-afternoon treat and have a snack of a cold pork and beans open-face on white bread with some diced white onions. We didn’t know better. We just liked the taste. Mom wasn’t even a pop artist, although Dad did have a bayonet from the war.
Do you think it was his can opener? Dad started in the artillery — until they found he could sing, dance and play an instrument. Then, they transferred him to Nice in Southern France to help entertain the troops on leave. Mom was there in the Red Cross serving donuts. I bet those GI’s left the pork and beans back at the front and enjoyed some good French cooking.
Still, there is a lot to be said for beans with a little pork.
Where did I put that bayonet?
Grandpa Jim