“The Mier expedition was an unsuccessful military operation launched in November 1842 by a Texian militia against Mexican border settlements…. On December 20, 1842, some 308 Texan soldiers, who had ignored orders to pull back from the Rio Grande to Gonzales, approached Ciudad Mier… The Texans were unaware that 3,000 Mexican troops were in the area under the command of generals Francisco Mexia and Pedro de Ampudia. In the Battle of Mier that resulted, the Texians were outnumbered ten to one… diplomatic efforts on behalf of Texas by the foreign ministers of the United States and Great Britain led [Antonio López de Santa Anna, the ruler of Mexico] to compromise: he said one in ten of the prisoners would be killed. To help determine who would die, Huerta had 159 white beans and 17 black beans placed in a pot. In what came to be known as the Black Bean Episode or the Bean Lottery, the Texans were blindfolded and ordered to draw beans. Officers and enlisted men, in alphabetical order, were ordered to draw. The seventeen men who drew black beans were allowed to write letters home before being executed by firing squad.” – The Mier Expedition, Wikipedia
This Wikipedia excerpt brought to you by: nothing to write about this soup.
I got the recipe from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland,” where it is credited to Mrs. Charles B. Trail. There was a junior and a senior Charles Bayard Trail but I believe the recipe may be from the elder Trail, who lived from 1857-1914 and served as Secretary of Legation to Brazil in the 1880s. In 1889 he married Grace Winebrener (1870-1941). Both came from prominent families in Frederick; their wedding was covered by the local news as well as the New York Times.
“Men of mark in Maryland,” 1907, archive.org
Seeing as how Mr. Trail spent some time in Brazil, it is tempting to draw a connection between the soup and Feijoada, which is sometimes served with orange slices. However, recipes similar to this one show up in several US cookbooks from the 1870s onward, in places far from Maryland as Chicago and Seattle.
Bean soup when done right is a simple process with a complex flavor. Unfortunately, my experimenting with the electric pressure cooker did this one a disservice. I overcooked it and it came out kind of flat. I should have maybe done ten or fifteen minutes instead of twenty-five (natural release) and I should have resisted the instinct to integrate the ingredients, instead layering them with the meats (browned, perhaps) on the bottom and onions (sautéed, perhaps) on the top. Well, now I know! And now back to our unrelated filler:
“In 1847, during the Mexican-American War, the U.S. Army occupied northeastern Mexico. Captain John E. Dusenbury, a white bean survivor, returned to El Rancho Salado and exhumed the remains of his comrades… They were buried in a large common tomb in 1848, in a cement vault on a bluff one mile south of La Grange. The grave site is now part of a state park, the Monument Hill and Kreische Brewery State Historic Sites.”
“The Drawing of the Black Bean,” Frederic Remington
Recipe:
- water or stock
- 1 Pint dry black beans
- .5 Lb salt pork
- 1 beef bone
- 1 onion
- 1 carrot
- 1 turnip
- 1 teaspoon cloves
- cornstarch
- lemon slices
- hard-boiled eggs
Soak 1 pint beans overnight in cold water. Put the beans in 6 quarts cold water with ½ lb salt pork, a beef bone, 1 onion, 1 carrot, 1 turnip, one teaspoonful cloves. Boil three or four hours, then strain through a colander. Add a little cornstarch, thicken and boil a few minutes longer. Serve with slices of lemon and hard-boiled egg.
Recipe from “Eat, Drink & Be Merry in Maryland”
