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Every culture has its comfort foods. Foods that we naturally gravitate to when we’ve had a bad day or are feeling low. One of Great Britain’s favorite go to comfort foods is Baked Beans on toast. A whopping 2.3 million Brits can be found eating Baked beans every day. Often times they are part of a "full English breakfast" but approximately one million people are eating them for dinner. It’s incredibly easy to make, heat up the beans; usually Britain’s favorite brand, Heinz and spread butter on toast. Pour the heated beans over the buttered toast. Dinner doesn’t get much simpler than that. The British version of baked beans is not the kind we Americans prefer. It does not have any brown sugar and only half the amount of white sugar.
While Americans favorite comfort foods are Macaroni and Cheese or Grilled Cheese, Britain's is toast. Bread was one of the foods that was heavily rationed in Britain after World War II. The government even went so far as to order that bread only be sold when it was one day old as it was less tasty and less likely to be overeaten. It was also easier to cut, so thinner slices could be cut. There was even a "national loaf" of bread that was made out of whole-meal which was considered to be mushy and gray. So with this history, it is easy to understand why this simple food, could actually be considered a treat. That being said, it’s one of those foods that just don’t seem to translate well. As big of an Anglophile as I am, I’ve never been tempted to try Beans on Toast!
