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From: "A Larson" <>
Subject: [GM-L] Food
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 2004 11:21:00 -0500


I am a displaced (or misplaced) person from Massachusetts. My mother was a descendant of Maine folk.
After soaking the beans overnight, she put them in the oven of the big old black iron stove with the piece of salt pork, molasses etc to cook all day Meanwhile she cooked homemade donuts every Saturday morning. Sometimes we had brown bread with the meal but never hot dogs. This was a "ritual" every Saturday evening. Because of preferences with the adults, Mother rotated the types of beans every 3 weeks: pea beans, kidney or yellow eye beans.
The church we went to in Worcester, occasionally put on a baked pea bean supper on Saturday nights. They served a delicious cole slaw with it. (Wish I had the recipe). It was more of a relish.
Sunday, Mother served the "big" meal after church and the evening meal consisted of canned fruit with baking powder biscuits or a strawberry shortcake.
When my husband was skipper of private sailing yachts in Manchester by the Sea, he learned that folks from Vermont used maple syrup in place of molasses in baked beans (along with a bit of rum).

Arline(Taylor) Larson
Native of Paxton, Worcester County, MA: living near the Peace River in Florida


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