I love baked beans. My mother always used yellow eye beans (not to be confused with black eyed peas which they resemble. Black eyed peas are too savory to use for baked beans. They are better cooked the southern way with just bacon or salt pork) and so of course do I. Problem is that this particular variety of small, mild bean has gone out of favor. Luckily, one of my brothers lives in North Carolina where they grow so he sends me care packages a couple of times a year. Baked beans are one of the easiest things to make. You just have to plan ahead because as beans age, they dry out and you never know how old the beans actually are, so you need to soak them overnight and maybe even boil them for an hour before you mix them up with the good stuff and put them in the oven for about 6 hours. The beans need to be fork tender before they go into the oven or they'll be hard when they come out. Lesson learned the hard way.
The "good" stuff is brown sugar, maple syrup, molasses, pepper, salt pork, onion, and cardamom (my addition). For years I had trouble reproducing my mothers beans. I just couldn't bring myself to put in that much sugar and maple syrup. But, that's what makes them taste so good. They are always requested for the cousins picnic which is what replaced celebrating our grandmother's birthday in August. They're good whether they are hot or cold.
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