Opening Up a Can

Of beans. That's what friend Becky did just a few minutes ago on Facebook. She invited a torrent of funny comments when she posted about opening a can of Bush's baked beans and how it reminded her of the VanCamp's pork and beans from childhood. Which made me think about cans in general. And the dinner table of my youth, and finally my mother's cooking. As a child of the 60's I was fed from cans. Mom's pantry was stocked with Campbell's soups, Chef Boyardee's pastas, the dreaded pork and beans, saurkraut, tiny mysterious cans of mushroom steak sauce, green beans and peas. Some were mere ingredients, some were stand alone dishes, some were magically both. What I remember about the pork and beans was that frightening little mass of of what I now refer to as the perfunctory pork. Mom said that if the word pork was on the label, VanCamp's et al was required to include some in every can. If I was the designated can opener for a meal, I fished the wretched thing out and deposited it in the trash, fearing that it might end up on my plate and I would inadvertently chomp into it. She made wondrous chili by combining a large can of these, a can of kidney beans, a can of stewed tomatoes and a pound of hamburger browned with an onion chopped up fine. There may have been the finest of sprinklings of chili powder, but this stuff wasn't the least bit spicy. It appealed to my ten year old palate, though, and the house was filled with warm, rich aromas when this melange was simmering on top of the stove on a North Dakota winter night. I didn't know until I was grown how much my mother disliked cooking. How relieved she was to no longer have the drudgery of planning, shopping for, and cooking meals. If it hadn't been for cans, I honestly don't know how she would have managed! I remember being astonished at Grandma Esther's when I witnessed her making soup from scratch! She was simmering a beef soup bone with onions and celery to start a broth for vegetable soup. Grandma could make soup without a can! It was a miracle. It seems the cooking bug skipped my mother's generation and bit me with voracity. I love to cook and will cook just for moi as well as for a crowd. I still make a version of my mom's opening up some cans chili. I use a greater variety of beans, often cooking them up from their dried state, but sometimes using the canned variety for convenience. I use lots of spices and garlic that are completely foreign to Mom's Norwegian upbringing. I do use canned tomatoes, and if I'm really lucky, sometimes they're the fruit from a friend's garden. Thanks, Becky, for opening up this can of memories.