Baked beans - the musical fruit

The first known published recipe for baked beans appeared in 1829 in The Frugal Housewife, by Mrs S.M. Child of Boston. In 1875, a Maine company began to mass-produce them for sale in cans. In 1890, the Van Camp Packing Co. of Indianapolis added a rich tomato sauce to the basic mix of salt pork, beans, mustard and blackstrap molasses. H.J. Heinz, the Pittsburg firm, introduced them, with a less sweet recipe, to Britain in 1901, where, as a staple constituent of the Great British Breakfast, they sell over one million cans a day.