Boston baked beans are a variety of baked beans

Baked beans

Baked beans is a dish containing beans, sometimes baked but, despite the name, usually stewed, in a sauce. Most commercial canned baked beans are made from haricot beans, also known as navy beans – a variety of Phaseolus vulgaris – in a sauce. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, a tomato...

, typically sweetened with molasses

Molasses

Molasses is a viscous by-product of the processing of sugar cane, grapes or sugar beets into sugar. The word molasses comes from the Portuguese word melaço, which ultimately comes from mel, the Latin word for "honey". The quality of molasses depends on the maturity of the sugar cane or sugar beet,...

 or maple syrup

Maple syrup

Maple syrup is a syrup usually made from the xylem sap of sugar maple, red maple, or black maple trees, although it can also be made from other maple species such as the bigleaf maple. In cold climates, these trees store starch in their trunks and roots before the winter; the starch is then...

 and flavored with salt pork

Salt pork

Salt pork or white bacon is salt-cured pork. It is prepared from one of three primal cuts: pork side, pork belly, or fatback. Depending on the cut, respectively, salt pork may be lean, streaky or entirely fatty. Made from the same cuts as bacon, salt pork resembles uncut slab bacon, but is...

 or bacon

Bacon

Bacon is a cured meat prepared from a pig. It is first cured using large quantities of salt, either in a brine or in a dry packing; the result is fresh bacon . Fresh bacon may then be further dried for weeks or months in cold air, boiled, or smoked. Fresh and dried bacon must be cooked before eating...

.

Native Americans had made corn bread and baked beans. The Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony

Plymouth Colony

Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...

 learned these recipes in the early 1620s, and likely added barley

Barley

Barley is a major cereal grain, a member of the grass family. It serves as a major animal fodder, as a base malt for beer and certain distilled beverages, and as a component of various health foods...

 to the corn meal to invent brown bread

Brown bread

Brown bread is a designation often given to breads made with significant amounts of whole grain flour, usually rye or wheat, and sometimes dark-colored ingredients such as molasses or coffee...

. The Triangular Trade

Triangular trade

Triangular trade, or triangle trade, is a historical term indicating among three ports or regions. Triangular trade usually evolves when a region has export commodities that are not required in the region from which its major imports come...

 of the 1700s helped to make Boston an exporter of rum

Rum

Rum is a distilled alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane by-products such as molasses, or directly from sugarcane juice, by a process of fermentation and distillation. The distillate, a clear liquid, is then usually aged in oak barrels...

, of which molasses is an ingredient used in the distillation

Distillation

Distillation is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in volatilities of components in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....

 process. At that time, molasses was added to local baked bean recipes, creating Boston Baked Beans. In colonial New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

, baked beans were traditionally cooked on Saturdays and left in the brick ovens

Ovens

Ovens is a small village and Roman Catholic parish adjacent to the town of Ballincollig, County Cork, Ireland. The 2006 Census indicates the population of the village is 1,703 an increase of 62.1% from the 2002 Census.- History :...

 overnight. On Sundays, the beans were still hot, allowing people to indulge in a hot meal and still comply with Sabbath

Sabbath

Sabbath in Christianity is a weekly day of rest or religious observance, derived from the Biblical Sabbath.Seventh-day Sabbath observance, i.e. resting from labor from Friday sunset to Saturday sunset, is practiced by seventh-day Sabbatarians...

restrictions. Brown bread and baked beans were a popular meal on Saturdays and Sundays in Massachusetts until at least the 1930s.