Originally posted 23 May 2012

I have been known to experiment with rum in my own kitchen and enjoy the theatricality of flaming dishes, but there is such a thing as going too far. One might surmise that this recipe from the 1950’s for baked beans flamed with rum is an example of style over substance.

Baked Beans Au Glow-Glow
Ingredients:

• 4 c Canned Baked Beans
• 1/4 c Molasses
• 1/4 c Ketchup
• 1 tb Yellow Table Mustard
• 4 slices Bacon (cut in half)
• 1/2 c Dark Rum

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Combine ingredients, except bacon and rum, in large casserole.
Cover beans with bacon slices and bake until the bacon is done — 2 hours.
Warm rum in small sauce pan, ignite and spoon over the hot beans.

Note that the beans are covered with strips of bacon, which the flaming rum is poured over, so you can fill your home with the delightful smell of flaming bacon fat. Note also that this dish was concocted before the invention of the modern smoke alarm, which may be one of many reasons for its fall from favor. The source for this is “Fashionable Food, Seven Decades of Food Fads” by Sylvia Lovegren, and if you wish to visit the chamber of horrors that is cooking in the 50’s and 60’s, this book is a great place to start. Sylvia credits the recipe to John J. Poister, a food and travel columnist for the New Yorker and other magazines, who certainly should have known better. I’ll add a cup of dark rum to a pot of my chili, but this is beyond reason.

Meanwhile, the reviews for the book keep coming in – one just appeared in AllStarCask, a rum blog that I was unaware of before. I keep learning about more people around the world who share an interest in not only drinking good rum, but writing about it. Civilization may not fall after all.