Bean hole beans are a traditional dish that originated with Native Americans and were passed on to early settlers. They are made by baking beans with bear grease and maple syrup in clay pots covered with deerskins and buried in coals in the ground. The slow, long cooking makes the beans very digestible, tender, and delicious. Maine logging-camp cooks modified this process by using a stone-lined pit in which a fire is built until a good bed of coals forms. A cast iron bean pot is lowered into the pit, covered with soil, and allowed to cook, usually overnight. The variety of beans used in bean-hole beans are usually heirloom Colonial types such as Yellow Eye, Jacobs Cattle, and Soldier beans. The dish is still popular in Maine, particularly for public suppers and other special events. If you want to make bean hole beans, you need to dig a hole, build a fire in it, and cook the beans in a cast iron pot buried in the hole.