Beans! Don’t Get Soaked

To soak or not to soak . . . maybe it comes down to how organized you are--and how much you like the taste of beans.

Unlike Marion Cunningham, I’m never sure the night before what I’ll be cooking for dinner the following night. For me, the extra hour that unsoaked beans take in the oven is a bargain if the alternative is having to choose between soaking beans overnight and not eating beans at all.

Having to make that choice would be tragic, because I love the taste of beans. Actually, that’s the other reason I don’t like to soak them. Unsoaked beans have a much deeper, richer flavor than soaked. You get a big beany broth, too, rather than the usual pallid liquid. (I have never noticed that unsoaked beans weren’t as creamy.) And as for the myth that saking beans makes them less gassy, scientists say it’s just not true.

As one of the leaders of the no-soak movement, I am glad she at least took the trouble to try it my way, though. Doing things just because our grandparents did is no way to cook. (Besides, what about all of those people whose grandparents didn’t soak beans.)

And I’m doubly glad she salted the beans before cooking them. According to some equally false conventional wisdom, that’s a sure way to make sure beans never cook all the way through. At least, that’s one old saw out of the way.