We take a lot for granted these days and it can sometimes be hard to fathom what was like for the people that came before us. Did you know back in the early 1800’s that bean cultivation had yet to be perfected? Every bean plant would only grow a single bean. The bourgeois at the time would eat these lone legumes on tiny square pieces of toasted bread as hors d’oeuvres at high class parties. Marie Antoinette once went to a party wearing an entire boat on her head that would fire out single beans from its tiny canons at people as a show of her huge wealth and power.
It wasn’t until 1848 that John Dogecore (the farmer) cross pollinated several bean plants until he created a new crop that could grow hundreds of beans on a single plant. Suddenly a single bean on a slice of tiny toast was no longer the food of the rich and powerful, but the everyman. Out in his field, showcasing his first bumper crop of beans that year, John Dogecore (the farmer) spoke to reporters.
“No longer will a single bean be used as a symbol of the aristocracy. May every man women and child in this great nation eat a whole can of my beans on large pieces of toast before they fuck off into the coal mines. A belly full. A heart satiated. I grew these for the people, I grew these for you.” And with this he held out his fists and let his beans spill to the ground like rain.
After this historic moment, beans on toast became the staple food of the working class in Britain. Infant mortality dropped to an all time low as the often underfed and overworked working class of the nation could suddenly access a hearty, cheap meal.
Source: https://www.dogecore.com/blogs/news/john-dogecore-the-farmers-first-high-yield-bean-harvest-festival-day