Bean Suppah!

Bean suppers. Or as they say here, bean suppahs. They're a big deal here in Maine. Like many other Maine-related activities, I had heard tales of these suppers over the years. The choosing of your pie before you eat dinner, the old people who consume amazing quantities of food in record time, the red hot dogs. Luckily, we arrived in Maine at the tail end of Supper Season. Saturday night John, Jason, and I headed up to Gray to the VFW for $7 worth of beany goodness!!

First up, the pie table. Better hurry! The chocolate creams are going fast.....

We went for an assortment, usually the best tactic.

We grabbed a seat.....away from these people. They were already eating and we didn't want to get in the way of their action. That's a bad move at a bean supper.

We started off by drinking coffee while waiting for our food to come out. And yes, there was also the choice of Kool-Aid. Red Kool-Aid. French bread, coleslaw, and pickles took the edge off. Then came John's personal favorite, American Chop Suey. People, I don't make this stuff up.

Red hot dogs are a Maine favorite. Rarely seen outside the state. There may be a reason for that. They snap when they're cooked right. Explain the physics behind that please.

And finally the star of the show....the beans!! Tonight featured 2 kinds of baked beans, but this number can vary from supper to supper.

Does that look like a well-rounded meal or what?? Oh wait!! The brown bread in a can is coming out. I would have been quite sad if this hadn't shown up.

Mmmmmmm....that's better. We stuffed ourselves on the Maine goodness of it all. Someone in our party may or may not have made a second trip to the pie table -- total bean supper FAUX PAS!!

Said person may or may not have gotten dirty looks.....but turns out that old people eating beans are easily distractible. In any case, we were happy.

Although supper season is starting to wind down around these parts, you can still spot a few signs out on the weekend for bean suppers, turkey suppers, chicken pot pie suppers, even an occasional roast beef supper. Maine is supper-crazy. And this California girl's stomach appreciates that.