Beans and Sauce...

Baked beans enjoy huge popularity at UK mealtimes. And yes, the name IS slightly misleading - the beans are actually 'simmered' rather than 'baked'. The familiar dark cyan can has been part of my pantry/larder experience since my age was expressed in single figures, many years ago. But recently, something strange and mysterious has happened...

It is one of those things that you notice once, dismiss as insignificant, but then with each successive instance, you gradually promote it in terms of importance. I'm now at the point where I'm intrigued enough to see if anyone else has noticed it.

Noticed what? Well, when you have opened a tin/can of beans, you then empty the tin/can into a pan or into a microwavable container (usually a pyrex bowl) and then heat them up (but not boiling them, since this allegedly 'impairs' the flavour - actually I love the flavour of overly enthusiastically-boiled 'beans that have gone mushy', but that's another story). And it is here, at the point of emtying them out, that the change has occurred. Previously, the beans and the sauce were one, and could be emptied out merely by inverting the tin/can - but recently, the sauce and beans are separate, with the sauce on top, and the beans in a lump ('en masse') underneath. Vigorous shaking is now required in order to remove the beans from the nether end of the tin/can.

I've tried opening brand new tins/cans, as well as those nearer the 'sell by' date, and the effect seems to be consistent. Once homogeneous beans and sauce have been replaced with sauce over beans 'en masse'. Now I know this is not the end of civilisation as we know it (although it comes a close second!), but I'd still like to know why this momentous change has happened, hence this blog post!