Sounds like my perfect day!
So, you’re presented with the story of a woman victimizing her husband, but rather than accepting it at face value, you have to scramble for alternate explanations where she would be the victim, because it doesn’t fit your prefered narrative where women are victimized by men, right? This message board is really terrible from this point of view.
My great grandfather’s wife, from all accounts (my own family and other locals who have known her), wasn’t a nice person, and notoriously a penny pincher (and greediness was so widespread in this area that to be remembered as being abnormally greedy, especially by people of this generation, means a lot, believe me).
She put to work (rented out) the children of my grandfather’s first marriage starting at age 6 (not her own children), hijacked the inheritance of their mother, treated them very badly (along with, later, their own children. When she found out that her husband had left his daughter and granddaughter stay in their home for a visit, she kicked both out, even though they had no other place to stay that night, and forbade her husband to let them stay in their house again).
She definitely didn’t allow any luxury (not that they were wealthy people, so “luxury” would have been relative). When a relative offered shoes to my then teenage grandmother so that she could go dancing (people were normally wearing clogs, at the time) and she found out (my grandmother was hiding the shoes), she took them and sold them. Eggs weren’t their only source of income, they were small farmers, having some cows, some potatoes fields, some wheat fields, etc…a bit of everything.
I’ve no reason to suppose that she denied my greatgrandfather eggs for any other reason than because she thought it was an extravagant expense and being bed-ridden, there was nothing he could do about it. That’s most certainly how it was recounted by the neighbor, at least. Nothing of what I heard about them let me think that my great grandfather had much say in the running of the household, either.
But you try and tell the young people today that… and they won’t believe you.
I was watching an old episode of Midsomer Murders a few weeks ago, and Inspector Barnaby was getting breakfast in the cafeteria (canteen?) at work. At least half his plate was beans. They looked disgusting. I never eat baked beans as-is heated up straight from the can. We’ve always doctored them with bacon, sauteed onions, mustard, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce, then, slow baked them for an hour or more. Of course, Barnaby was called away before he could actually eat his breakfast.
Big breakfasts now in the US seem to be more of a weekend thing. I certainly rarely eat a big breakfast, and if I do eat one on the weekend, it’s more likely a kind of brunch, and I’d only eat two meals that day.
No, I don’t think women are routinely victimized by men. And with the rest of the background you gave, it does sound like she was just a miserable miser. But the story, as you gave it, could very easily have been the story of a woman whose only income was the eggs. That was back in the days when a married woman didn’t legally own anything, her husband did. And frankly, I find it hard to identify with a person so evil that she tried to avoid feeding her sick husband eggs unless the eggs are somehow extremely valuable to her. I was trying to guess why they would be so valuable.
I like baked beans from the can, and I don’t like them when they’ve been ruined by nasty stuff like mustard or undercooked onions. 
I don’t eat baked beans for breakfast in the US, but I’ve enjoyed them in the UK.
Here’s a place that has it in Chicago. Of course, this pub caters to football (soccer) fans and the time zone difference means that matches can start as early as 630 AM. The clientele features a lot of ex pats and Anglophiles such as myself.
This is what I like about the “full” breakfast. It’s not something I would eat under ordinary, daily circumstances, but when you’re traveling or hiking or otherwise out all day, then it’s great. You’re good until tea-time.
I answered the way I did because you didn’t say something like “Could it be that the eggs were her only source of income? That while her husband was eating eggs, she had nothing?”. You asserted that her husband was greedy. You didn’t ask if he was depriving her of something, you asked me what she was denied by her greedy husband.
By the way, I realized one thing after writing my last post. I know very few anecdotes about my great grandparents, and for some of them nothing at all. She’s the only one about whom I’ve heard many tales. Invariably about her nastiness or her greediness, and generally both. I guess the others would have some interesting stories to tell if they were brought back to life, but I guess there were on the overall rather unremarkable people. But her, she was remarkable, albeit in a bad way.
And : women back in the day did own property. They might not have been able to dispose of it freely, depending on the local laws, but they owned it.
A more uplifting story about this great grandfather, for a change, with this time a distinct lack of greediness. At this time he was a poor sharecropper (he and his second wife were both widowed at a young age, and the inheritances from all four families, along presumably with her penny pinching, were what allowed them to buy a farm later on). It was around 1900-1905. He had gone to some village at the fair that was taking place for the local saint’s day to sell his produces. Soon after he left, he realized he had lost his wallet and all the money from the sales in it. So, he went back looking for it, in vain of course. The road going up to the village square was lined for the occasion with beggars hoping for some donation. He asked them if by chance they hadn’t seen the wallet, and none of them had, of course. But when he began to lament, wondering about how he would feed his children, one of them told him “Ah! I see that you aren’t much richer than me. Here’s your wallet” and gave it back to him.
Yeah, I was being dramatic, that’s a risky strategy. This time it failed, and I have egg on my face.
That’s a funny story about the beggar, though. I’ve heard a similar story about a thief returning money, but I feel like I’ve hijacked this thread enough. Some other time.
Something a lot like this is still done in the New Orleans area. Not all families do it, but some do – including my own. The way you described that “coming over for lunch” day/evening is really familiar. Perhaps a cultural holdover from the city’s French history?
US baked beans are seasoned completely differently from UK baked beans. I won’t eat the US version without serious modifications/additions, but your basic Heinz Beanz are an essential part of a full breakfast.
No? I’m sorry to hear that. Here in NYC, it’s easily available, at least on weekends. But it’s known as the “Irish breakfast.” And it will come with black *and *white pudding.
Ok you and everyone talking about the beans… How do the UK and US beans compare and contrast? I’ve seen pictures of the UK ones and they look almost like Boston baked beans. I haven’t made them from scratch, but it seems like the ingredients are very similar. Is it ratios or technique? I love Boston baked beans but I could see if they were just slightly different that I would hate them so I’m curious if it’s radically different or just a more coke/pepsi thing (in which they’re brown sugar water but differing flavors, but close enough some people can’t tell them apart).
Beans baked in tomato sauce. Very similar if not the same as Boston baked beans. Except I believe Boston beans are also stewed with bacon and molasses, where the British version is in tomato sauce, possibly sweetened with brown sugar but not quite molasses in texture.
Think pork & beans without the pork. The first three ingredients in Heinz Beanz are beans (51%), tomatoes (34%), and water. The same list for Van Camp’s Pork & Beans is Beans, water, tomato puree. There is no molasses in Heinz, and very little spicing. Van Camp’s list onion powder as a distinct ingredient along with HFC. Heinz beans are vegetarian, whilst Van Camp’s have been shown a picture of a pig somewhere during processing.
While most ‘pork and beans’ in the US may have a tomato-base sauce, there is at least one brand (termed New England style) with a molasses base. Make that two brands.
Interesting. I always thought Boston baked beans (and barbecue/pork & beans) always had a strong molasses and/or brown sugar component to them – which is why I tend not to like them. I might have to give some of the other brands a try, but I suspect I still will end up only liking Heinz beans for eating out of the can.
Most people just eat cereals thee days. In other words, Corn Flakes. In England you usually only find a full English breakfast in a B&B or a hotel. Black pudding is for the north of England, not everybody likes it. In my experience you don’t often get kippers.
As for English baked beans … I hate them. Canteen food at its blandest. Why do people like the things?
I like both B&M and Bush’s. Heinz also makes a “Deep Browned” version of baked beans that is really good. Beware: It too has a brown sugar and/or molasses base.
Beans baked in maple syrup (a strictly Canadian thing, I think) are also good.
The tomato sauce in my beans “a la Britannique” is just watery, with almost no flavor. I have a Full English or Irish breakfast three or four times a year (it normally takes me two days to finish one), and I’ll continue having them with one of the other kinds of beans.