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Sunday, March 20, 2005
Covington: Mushy beans
By Gary Covington
Looking In
* I'd long wondered about refried beans. On screen we never get a good look at them. Ladlefuls are glopped onto the cowboy's platter and he sets to. What are they like--the beans not the cowboys--are they red or white? Do they need half a day's soaking to soften them up?
LONG before Clint Eastwood began collecting armfuls of Oscars, long before Dirty Harry, in the very early nineteen-sixties he co-starred in a television western series called Rawhide.
The weekly show followed the adventures of a cattle drive. Clint played Rowdy Yates, a bit of a thug in the first episodes, always getting into tight spots and always resorting to his fists (there was remarkably little gunplay in those days). Usually, to atone for his sins, he was made to ride drag, a dusty duty at the rear of the herd chivvying along the stragglers.
Any chatter with the other cowboys was done at the chuck wagon, a nineteenth-century mobile kitchen drawn by mules. Meals were invariably beefsteak--there was plenty walking about--great slices of bacon, beans fried in bacon grease and a sort of unleavened pancake. At the next meal any leftover beans were reheated, refried, in the chuck wagon's skillet.
I'd long wondered about refried beans. On screen we never get a good look at them. Ladlefuls are glopped onto the cowboy's platter and he sets to. What are they like--the beans not the cowboys--are they red or white? Do they need half a day's soaking to soften them up? And the sauce. Is it made from tomatoes, maybe with a dash of molasses?
These are questions which have nagged me for years and so it was almost a Eureka moment when on a shelf of Gaisano's downstairs grocery I spotted a can of frijoles refritos--refried beans.
The artwork on the can was disappointing. Not a hint of the Old West. No trailworn cowpunchers, no chuck wagon on the drive. Only the head and shoulders of a senorita, the canner's logo, hovering over a serving suggestion, a plate of what looked like very ordinary baked beans jazzed up with a sprig of parsley.
Nor was the list of ingredients out of the ordinary; cooked beans, chili pepper, onion and garlic powder, vinegar and a splash of soy bean oil. No bacon grease, no essence of prairie, nothing which might elevate common old beans to a cowboy's idea of gotta get at it grub. I opened the tin.
In the north of England there is a dish called mushy peas which is made of processed peas mashed to a coarse paste. It has a pronounced savory flavor with none of the sweetness of fresh peas and is traditionally served up with meat pie and potatoes.
My canned refried beans, also claiming to be traditional, turned out to be cowboy country's answer to mushy peas but without the flavor. A coarse mahogany-red colored paste tasting faintly of chili. Mushy beans.
I was astonished. All those years I had imagined Clint and Co lashing into a sort of beany gastronomic treat when in fact they were forcing down a bland red glop that even the Casa Covington dogs sneered at.
Yet another cherished fancy bites the dust.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (March 20, 2005 issue)
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