PEASANT FOODS

Peasant foods are dishes specific to a particular culture:

made from accessible and inexpensive ingredients, and usually prepared and seasoned to make them more palatable. They often form a significant part of the diets of people who live in poverty, or have a lower income compared to the average for their society or country.
Peasant foods have been described as being the diet of peasants, that is, tenant or poorer farmers and their farm workers, and by extension, of other cash-poor people. They may use ingredients, such as offal and less-tender cuts of meat, which are not as marketable as a cash crop. Characteristic recipes often consist of hearty one-dish meals, in which chunks of meat and various vegetables are eaten in a savory broth, with bread or other staple food. Sausages are also amenable to varied readily available ingredients, and they themselves tend to contain offal and grains.

Peasant foods often involve skilled preparation by knowledgeable cooks using inventiveness and skills passed down from earlier generations. Such dishes are often prized as ethnic foods by other cultures and by descendants of the native culture who still desire these traditional dishes.

Baked beans are a dish containing beans, sometimes baked but, despite the name, usually stewed, in a sauce. Most commercially canned baked beans are made from haricot beans, also known as navy beans (a variety of Phaseolus vulgarism) in a sauce. In Ireland and the United Kingdom, a tomato sauce is most commonly used, and they are commonly eaten on toast or as part of a full English, Scottish, or Irish breakfast.
American Boston baked beans use a sauce prepared with molasses and salt pork, the popularity of which has led to the cities being nicknamed "Bean town". Beans in a tomato and brown sugar, sugar, or corn syrup sauce are widely available throughout the US.
Canada's Quebec-style beans often use maple syrup. This style is also popular in states bordering Canada's eastern provinces. [Citation needed]
Canned baked beans are used as a convenience food. They may be eaten hot or cold, straight from the can, as they are already fully cooked.
The beans presently used to make baked beans are all native to South America and were introduced to Europe around 1528. The dish is commonly described as having a savory-sweet flavor and a brownish- or reddish-tinted white bean once baked, stewed, canned or otherwise cooked. According to alternative traditions, sailors brought cassoulet from the south of France or northern France, and the Channel Islands, where bean stews were popular. Most probably, a number of regional bean recipes coalesced and cross-fertilized in North America and ultimately gave rise to the baked bean culinary tradition familiar today. [Citation needed]

While many recipes today are stewed, traditionally beans were slow-baked in a ceramic or cast-iron bean pot. A tradition in Maine of "bean whole" cooking may have originated with the native Penobscot people and was later practiced in logging camps. A fire would be made in a stone-lined pit and allowed to burn down to hot coals, and then a pot with 11 pounds of seasoned beans would be placed in the ashes, covered over with dirt, and left to cook overnight or longer. These beans were a staple of Maine's logging camps, served at every meal.
Canned beans, often containing pork, were among the first convenience foods, and it is in this form that they became exported and popularized by U.S. companies operating in the UK in the early 20th century. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration stated in 1996, "It has for years been recognized by consumers generally that the designation 'beans with pork,' or 'pork and beans' is the common or usual name for an article of commerce that contains very little pork." The included pork is typically a piece of salt pork that adds fat to the dish.[citation needed]
Canned baked beans with small pork sausages are still available,[9] as are variants with other added ingredients such as chili.[citation needed]

Bulgur (from Turkish: bulgur; also burgher, bourghoul, "groats") is a cereal food made from the cracked parboiled groats of several different wheat species, most often from durum wheat. It originates in Middle Eastern cuisine.
Bulgur does not require cooking, although it can be included in cooked dishes; soaking in water is all that is needed.

Coarse bulgur is used to make pottages, while the medium and fine grains are used for breakfast cereals, salads such as kısır, pilavs, breads, and in dessert puddings such as kheer. Bulgur porridge is similar to frumenty, a cracked wheat porridge that was a staple of medieval cuisine.

In breads, it adds a whole-grain component. It is a main ingredient in kibbeh and, soaked but not cooked, in tabbouleh salad. It is often used where rice or couscous could be used. In Indian and Pakistani cuisine, bulgur is often used as a cereal to make porridge with milk and sugar, or a savory porridge with vegetables and spices. It can be used to accompany other dishes in the same way as pasta or rice; it may be mistaken for rice because it has a similar appearance, although the texture is different.
Armenians prepare bulgur as a pilaf in chicken stock, with or without sautéed noodles, or cooked with tomatoes, onions, herbs and red pepper. The fine grind is used for making each, a bulgur salad similar to tabbouleh, prepared with tomato paste, fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley, olive oil, and other salad ingredients to personal taste. Pomegranate molasses, which is sour and sweet, is commonly used instead of lemon juice to add tartness. A variety of mazes and main dishes are prepared.
In Cyprus, it is used to make "κούπες" (also known as bulgur köftesi in Cypriot Turkish), a variety of kibbeh. Its crust is usually made of bulgur wheat, flour, oil, salt and egg, and then filled with ground meat (beef and/or pork), onions, parsley and spices. There is also vegetarian "κούπες" which substitutes the ground meat with chopped mushrooms.
The Saudi Arabian version of bulgur, popular in Nejd and Al-Has a, is known as garish.

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