From The Food Encyclopedia by Jacques Rolland and Carol Sherman
Also Boston baked beans. Navy beans are baked in an earthenware pot and flavored with molasses and salt pork. There are quite a few foods that originated in Boston; these baked beans are one. The Pilgrims found Indians baking beans in 1620. The Indians soaked the beans first to make them swell and soften their skins, then baked them overnight with deer fat and onions in a clay pot placed in a hole lined with stones. Since the Pilgrim women could not, for religious reasons, cook on Sunday, baked beans cooked the night before became a Sunday tradition. Later, when religious laws became less strict, a baked bean dish was a Saturday-night special, with pork replacing the deer fat of the Indians, and brown sugar and seasoning added. For years, the beans were baked by bakers, who called each Saturday morning, took the family's bean pot to a community oven and returned the baked beans with a bit of brown bread for Saturday supper or Sunday breakfast.
