Beans banned from harvest festivals (INGRATITUDE ALERT)

The Times ^ | September 9, 2002 | Hamida Ghafour

[MadIvan]

A MILLION housewives every day may well pick up a can of baked beans, as the advert used to boast, but few if any of them appear to be asylum-seekers.

So loathsome do refugees find the staple of British cuisine that the Diocese of Gloucester has asked worshippers at 400 churches not to donate beans at their harvest festivals. Canon Adrian Slade said he made the request because in the past the churches were inundated with tinned beans.

“Although baked beans are our national dish and we enjoy them with fervour at least three times a week, to most people from abroad they are a strange phenomenon. A tin of peas or ham would be more welcome,” he said, without adding how many Muslims among the 400 asylum-seekers housed in the diocese would welcome the ham, the eating of which is banned by Islam. A spokesman for St Laurence Church in Stroud confirmed they would not be collecting the beans for refugees.

“We have been told not to collect baked beans because only English people eat them. Apparently asylum-seekers don’t like the haricot beans served in tomato sauce the way we eat them.” But Brian Calway, a Conservative county councillor, criticised the refugees. “I would have thought if you were hungry and in a foreign land you would gratefully eat whatever you could get.”

Peter Clarke, Labour leader of the county council, said: “If you ask people to give, they give out of kindness of heart and what they can afford. I think they (the refugees) are being very presumptuous.”

[MadIvan]

No bloody kidding Mr. Clarke. Add to the fact that many of them want us dead too. I am heartily sick of "asylum seekers" and refugees.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Bump!

[brat]

Ingrates! LOL

[general_re]

Picky bastards, eh? I think I have an old can of chick peas in the back of the pantry that's just been gathering dust for a few years now - got an address where I can mail them?

On second thought, f*** 'em... ;)

[Lucius Cornelius Sulla]

They do seem a little picky, for folks who are starving. (So what is a 'haricot' bean, anyhow?)

[MadIvan]

From the Gourmet Glossary:

haricot bean

The shelled and dried mature French bean usually white, about 8 to 10 mm long and oval shaped. Sometimes coloured. Used extensively in Western cooking. The name is derived from the Aztec ayecotl: see also French bean (also called dry shell bean (USA)).

Regards, Ivan

[Tony in Hawaii]

We have a song here in America that begins "Beans, beans, the magical fruit..."

[piasa]

Well, of course they don't like those things... they go best with potato salad, cole slaw, BBQ pork steaks, beer or iced tea. Not exactly muslim fare.

Poor things have no idea what they're missing.

[general_re]

More BBQ pork ribs for you and me, then. Their loss ;)

[Paleo Conservative]

How many years till these immigrants outlaw pork.

[doglot]

You got that right! Pit cooked pork barbeque and baked beans are frequently the fare of church and fire department fund raisers. Heck, anytime more than 4 people get together!

[Dianna]

Rather presumptuous beggars, aren't they?

[Tony in Hawaii]

They can have my pork chop when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

[Arthur McGowan]

I guess beans just don't go with sheeps' eyes and curdled milk with camel hair in it.

[MadIvan]

Rather presumptuous beggars, aren't they?

A rather good turn of phrase; yes, you're correct. ;)

Regards, Ivan

[Jimmy Valentine]

Let 'em eat bangers and mash instead.

Regards

[MadIvan]

Gentlemen, gentlemen - I believe the poem to which you refer is this:

Beans beans the musical fruit
The more you eat the more you toot
The more you toot the better you feel
So eat your beans at e-ve-ry meal.

Beans beans, the musical fruit
The more you eat, the more you toot
Beans beans are good for the heart
The more you eat, the more you fart.

Best Regards, Ivan

Now trying very hard not to burst out in hysterical laughter

[Miss Marple]

Well, I didn't know there was a second stanza to the poem.

Obviously, you British are more literary than your American cousins.