Anybody Remember Big John's?

Big John's Beans 'N Fixin's. I used to love them when I was a kid. They were my favorite baked beans with a uniquely tangy flavor. Their gimmick was they didn't come in a can; they came in two, taped together: a regular sized can of beans and a smaller can of sauce, the aforementioned fixin's in the name. To prepare this delectable side dish, one had only to open and combine the contents of both cans, simmer the mixture until warm and you felt like you'd made a secret recipe. On store shelves, the double cans made quite the visual statement as they literally towered above the competition, perhaps convincing consumers they were getting something bigger or something extra, the secret ingredient, if you will. But it wasn't all hype. They really were great beans.

Parent company Hunt's pulled out all the stops when they brought out Big John's in the early '70s with TV ads and newspaper coupons, even an official ceramic Big John's bean crock you could order as a promotional premium. Don't laugh, they're collectible kitsch now and command serious prices. Don't believe me? Just do an eBay search and see for yourself. They even briefly sought to expand the line with a companion product, Big John's Chili 'N Beef Dinner, also packaged in the same two-can configuration. The chili product went by the wayside fairly quickly but the beans stuck around for years, even without the support of an ad campaign.

Unfortunately for us Big John's fans, Hunt's pulled the plug on them in the early 2000s and they are no longer to be found on store shelves. I don't really know why Big John's vanished into grocery history but my best guess is the cost of packaging became excessive. The last few years they were around, I would sometimes get a taste for them and allow myself not to be put off by the price, which was nearly twice that of competing products. But sometimes that amazing flavor was just worth the price. In retrospect, I wonder why they didn't just combine the beans and fixin's in a single can.

I have tried numerous other products, trying to find something that would come close. For a brief time, I found a store brand product at Food Lion, a local grocery chain in the Carolinas and neighboring states that came mighty close, albeit in a single can. It was Carolina barbecue beans and had a very similar tangy flavor profile but alas, those too seem to have vanished from store shelves.

Yes, Big John's Beans 'N Fixin's still has something of a cult following, enough so that culinary craftspeople with far more time and expertise than I have created copycat versions intended to duplicate—or at least approximate—their flavor. I haven't tried any of them yet but I'm fixin' to make some (get the pun there?).

As they said in Fried Green Tomatoes, "The secret's in the sauce" and in most of those recipes, the sauce in question is Hunt's Manwich sloppy Joe sauce, which makes logical sense because both products are from the same parent company. Using an existing product as the basis for another is common practice throughout the manufacturing world. Of course, the copycat recipes are a little more involved than just dumping some Manwich sauce into your beans.

For your enjoyment, I have included links to two Big John's copycat recipes below. The first is one of many calling for 'Manwich' sauce as a prime ingredient. The author says that in retrospect, he should have taken the recipe a step further and also come up with a copycat recipe for the Manwich sauce as well. The second recipe actually takes this approach and offers a more authentically 'from scratch' concoction. In reading the two, I don't see one as being any more complicated than the other, so try them both and see what you think. I know I will.

Update: 4 July 2020
Fourth of July is as good an excuse as any to try a new 'all-American' recipe, so I went for the Manwich recipe above. The only problem was the store didn't have any Manwich sauce on the shelf so I went for the DelMonte Sloppy Joe Sauce as a substitute because it was on sale and actually a few cents cheaper than the store brand. I made the sauce yesterday and let it sit in the fridge overnight, then combined it with the beans and cooked them about three hours in the Crock Pot. The result was not exactly what I remember Big John's tasting like but it was pretty amazing, nonetheless and the best baked beans I've had in years. The secret is definitely in the sauce.

Another Update: 15 April 2021
I have continued to make the above recipe over the past few months but with much shorter prep time. These days, I'll just throw the ingredients in the pot 20 or 30 minutes before I'm ready to eat them and that short period of simmering seems to work just fine and is almost as convenient as opening the two Big John's cans. I've tried several different brands of sloppy Joe sauce. The differences are subtle but the Manwich sauce is definitely closer to the Big John's flavor as I remember it. Delmonte is a good fallback for when Manwich is out of stock but the store brand sauces, while acceptable, just seem to lack that special 'zing'. It's worth the few pennies' difference for the real deal. Just sayin'.