From Seat 39A to Sliced Brown: The Pilgrimage to Beans on Toast

The only way to eat the dish, according to a Brit

A love letter to beans and toast.

Today, we have a piece from our first contributor about one of my favorite topics: beans!

Meet Katie Deighton, a dear friend and Brit living in New York City. When she’s not traveling across the U.S. via Amtrak or RVs and writing about it for The Wall Street Journal, Katie likes to soak in our country’s fine cuisine—like Time Square’s Margaritaville. (I know this because I witnessed it firsthand.)

As you’ll see, she’s also a fellow bean enthusiast who makes a strong case for sliced bread and canned varieties while exposing America’s greatest flaw: the lack of butter on bread.

Welcome, Katie!

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I have developed a routine that I employ every time I fly seven hours across the Atlantic to see my family. I get into Heathrow Airport around 10 a.m. and meet my dad next to the Costa Coffee sign at arrivals. We awkwardly hug. We walk to the elevators, and he complains about the cost of short-stay parking. We drive mostly in silence west on the M4 motorway for just over an hour listening to BBC radio. At home, my mum greets me at the door and boils the kettle as my dad lugs my suitcase up the stairs. I make a black cup of instant coffee, and my mum asks me what I want to eat for lunch. There is only one answer: beans on toast.

I’m sure there is some psychosocial analysis to be carried out on the fact that people born in a country that pillaged the globe go crazy for the most basic of pantry meals. Brits love beans on toast the way we love the NHS; we’ll protect to the death our right to publicly-funded healthcare and the warm mush of legumes as the rest of the world scoffs at our ER waiting times and supposedly spice-intolerant palates. But when I have knocked back two warm glasses of Sauvignon Blanc and slept a total of three hours in seat 39A, all I want is something warm and fast before I pass out on the sofa and ruin my jet lag alleviation strategy.

There are two ways to make British baked beans on toast: the low-budget way, and the wrong way.

The wrong way involves sourdough and some kind of “gourmet” beans, by which I mean fancy, store-bought concoctions spiced with paprika and the like that probably have a paragraph entitled “Our Story” printed on the label, or any type of homemade experiment. The New York Times Cooking recipe for “simple” beans on toast involves 10 ingredients. This. Is. Heresy.

And for what? Baked beans sit alongside ravioli and pastries in the category of “foods that actually taste better when they’ve been highly processed on an industrial scale.” Half a can—or tin, as we say—of the original Heinz Beanz is all you need.

This is a gourmet bean-free zone.

It’s important to note that British canned/tinned beans contain only a very small amount of sugar, spice, and flavorings beyond a basic tomato sauce. When I first moved to the U.S., I was rather shocked to learn that many American versions cannot legally be labelled as “vegetarian.”

Back to the Sourdough Issue: It tastes great, but the crust is too hard. You need a bread that, when toasted to medium, can be cut through with a dinner knife and fork. I like a couple of slices of regular, humdrum, run-of-the-mill, never-went-to-college sliced brown. Pop it in a toaster or under the broiler while you heat your beans in a pan on the stove. The only addition I’ll allow at this stage is a splash of Worcestershire sauce as the beans warm.

Once the toast is done to your liking, you need it buttered. (The lack of butter on bread in the United States is a national embarrassment. Didn’t the French buy you the Statue of Liberty? Pay it back by respecting pain et beurre.) Then pour over the beans, sauce and all.

I like to grate sharp cheddar cheese on top, while my dad enjoys a dollop of what we call “brown sauce”—a vinegary, peppery version of ketchup. My friend Flo finds her zing with a layer of Marmite (you’re going to have to Google that one, I’m afraid. I have no idea what it is despite consuming gallons of it in my lifetime) spread atop the butter.

I like my beans on toast at lunchtime, but this is truly a dish that cuts across the divides of mealtime. It’s perfect, protein-packed breakfast fuel ahead of a long run on a chilly day. It’s an easy Girl Dinner when you finish work at 8 p.m. and the stores are closed. I always have a sliced loaf in the freezer and a couple of tins in the cupboard.

I have one admission to make. When I fly home, the beans I crave aren’t made by Heinz, but by the German supermarket Aldi. And swimming among said beans are eight mini sausages. One tin, which feeds me and my 71-year-old father, costs 55 pence, which is the equivalent of 74 cents. I don’t know which animal ended up in the casing of these sausages and I never want to. But their worryingly spongy texture tastes like home.

Meet Ash—Katie and her boyfriend Dave’s dog!