Beans on Toast

After thirty years here, I finally broke down and fixed baked beans on toast for lunch – out of desperation for something to eat in a bare larder. I always thought the combination sounded awful and refused to try it. For one thing, tinned (canned) baked beans don't hold a candle to homemade Boston Baked Beans and its crusty sauce. In fact, though, I was pleasantly surprised! I have a feeling it was due to the toast, though – yummy Burgen bread – and the fact that it was the heel (crust, mimi [meaning 'ear' in Japanese]), giving the meal some chewy substance.


   Sorry to say, our local Sainsbury's has stopped stocking Burgen bread...will have to find another source. But their baked beans actually have a picture on the tin (can) showing beans on toast as a "serving suggestion".

 
Well, since beans and toast are legumes + wheat (complementary proteins), perhaps we should eat it more often – at least every time we start or finish a bread loaf. You see, if you keep a loaf in the freezer, you should keep the heels on both ends to keep the moisture in as you take slices out of the middle to pop into the toaster. Then you end up with two heels when the loaf is eaten (beans on toast for two people, of course).

    When we were students in Japan, we used to go to the local bakery and collect free bags of mimi, cut off because the Japanese don't like heels on their bread loaves. Too bad they don't stock tins of baked beans; you could live really cheaply there if they did...