Best places to pretend you're a true New Englander
Just because you went to school here or live here doesn't mean you're a Bostonian. Bostonians don't fear the cold and snow, they embrace it. Bostonians don't get dressed up to go to the symphony on Saturday night, they wear their sensible shoes and flannels and go on Friday afternoon. And Bostonians - true sons and daughters of New England - don't fear the social consequences of baked beans, a Puritan delight (to employ a local oxymoron). The best baked beans in town can be had at Durgin-Park, the venerable Faneuil Hall dining room that's overrun with tourists and day-trippers on weekends but bustles with natives during the week, and at Summer Shack, a faux-seaside eatery with two in-town locations and a third under construction at Logan Airport. There's nothing fake about either crock of beans. Durgin's are a bit soupy; the Shack's a bit dry. Both would please a Lowell, even a Cabot. And one of this town's best-kept secrets is the Shack's corned-beef boiled dinner, usually available in March before St. Patrick's Day. Last year the New York Times had the sense to send a big-foot food writer to scoop the local scribes on the hearty and sublime magnificence of chef/owner Jasper White's secret recipe for corning his own beef. If all were fed on a steady diet of White's New England-inspired cooking, Red America would vote Blue.

Durgin-Park, 340 Faneuil Hall Marketplace, Boston, (617) 227-2038, www.durgin-park.com; Summer Shack, 50 Dalton Street, Boston, (617) 867-9955, and 149 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, (617) 520-9500, www.summershackrestaurant.com.