Heinz Releases Official Recipe for Beans on Toast, Brits Bungle the Classic Meal
Heinz has been forced to publish a step-by-step guide for making baked beans on toast after Brits bungle the classic meal.
Almost half of Brits – 43 per cent – eat baked beans at least once a week and beans on toast has been a staple in the diet of generations of students.
But Heinz says that many Brits have been bungling how they store, cook and serve up their beans.
The brand has enlisted etiquette expert William Hanson to explain how to eat beans on toast in a ‘quintessentially British manner’.
Diners should store their Heinz can upside down at around 18°C and shake it for five seconds before opening to ensure an ‘even beans to sauce distribution’.
The beans should be warmed on the hob in a stainless steel pan, which Heinz says helps to preserve their ‘iconic taste’, for three to four minutes while stirring constantly.
It warns: ‘Never boil your Heinz beans. This can cause the sauce to split, potentially ruining the colour and flavour.’
Two slices of white farmhouse loaf bread should be toasted, placed on a plate and have unsalted butter spread evenly up to the crust.
The beans – heated to 64°C for the ideal instant eating temperature – are then poured over the beans. Mr Hanson advises: ‘Don’t drown your toast with beans.
This is not your local lido.’ He goes on: ‘A good butter, unsalted of course because we’re not heathens, will ensure it keeps its crisp crunch.’
Stressing the importance of following the official recipe to the letter, Mr Hanson says: ‘The only way to eat your beans is in a quintessentially British manner.’
The recipe released on social media soon blew the mind of many beans on toast fans with the choice of butter, in particular, causing controversy among the hundreds of comments.
Heinz declared online: ‘There are two types of people in the world – those who add butter to their beans on toast and those who don’t’.
Dawnie Claypole responded: ‘Oh, I’m a heathen. I love salted butter’ while another viewer branded unsalted butter ‘a crime’.
Similarly, Maria Brown said: ‘Unsalted butter literally tastes of nothing.
Salted all the way.”Leysha’ wrote: ‘Ur telling me there’s a beans on toast etiquette…’
Heinz says that the final optional step in its recipe is grating cheese on the hot beans and letting it melt for two minutes.
But one social media wag wanted further advice, asking: ‘Yes, but how do you eat it? I have friends that eat with their hand and others with fork and knife’.
And others enquired about ‘post-beans-on-toast farting etiquette’.
A Heinz spokesperson said: ‘Beans on toast are a cornerstone of British cuisine but people still get it wrong or are unsure how to make it.’
Heinz has put together the optimum way to prepare the classic, putting processes to the test so people can enjoy the classic at home.
‘Our simple instructions will guarantee tasty results.’
Conclusion
Despite its reputation as a cheap meal for strapped students, Heinz Baked Beans were first sold at the the late Queen’s grocer, also known as London’s Fortnum and Mason in the late 19th century.
It has been so enormously popular with Brits that, to mark their 150th anniversary, Heinz opened a pop-up Beans Museum with an immersive exhibit to celebrate in 2019.