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½ pound salt pork
3 cups dried beans
1 small onion, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
½ teaspoon dry mustard
⅓ cup molasses
Lucy's Note: This is the recipe she made on wash day, when the pungent-smelling soapy wash-water would splash and hiss on the wood stove - mixing with the aroma of baking beans. It took my mother years to figure out why her baking beans - made with the same recipe - didn't smell the same.
Soak beans in morning. Heat slowly, simmering until skin bursts and curls back when you blow on beans in a spoon. Pour boiling water over the pork; let stand 10 minutes; drain and cut into small pieces. Put the pork and sliced onion in the bottom of a bean pot. Drain the beans, saving the liquid. Add the beans to the pot; add the rest of the ingredients to the liquid. Mix and pour enough liquid over the beans to cover.
Bake covered at 250 degrees 6 - 8 hours.
Add remaining liquid as necessary while baking.
