held together with insoluble organic substances called pectins. Cooking changes this glue to

soluble pectins which slowly dissolve and that is the way beans turn tender. Acid changes the

picture. The pectic substances remain insoluble even through long cooking. A mere 1 teaspoon

vinegar in the cooking water of 1 pound (half kilo) of beans virtually stops the softening process.

My first attempts at making chili taught me that lesson. I cooked the beans and removed

them from the heat while they were still a bit chewy. I figured the further hour of cooking called

for in the recipe with the remaining ingredients would allow them to finish softening. I added

chopped-up tomatoes, spices, meat, and onion, and continued to cook the chili. When I sampled

it an hour later, the beans were still very chewy. The tomatoes made the sauce acidic and the

beans stopped softening. Many cooks learned the same lesson the hard way. Any seasoned

Southwestern chili cook can tell you that.

This can work to your advantage, too. If you don't want beans to get any softer, for

example when you are making minestrone soup, add a little tomato or vinegar when the beans

reached your favorite degree of tenderness and continue cooking the soup. The rest of the

ingredients will go on cooking but the beans will "hold."

How much water and salt

How much water should you use when cooking beans? Legumes expand roughly to 2½

times their dry volume when fully rehydrated by cooking. If you add more water than necessary,

you end up pouring off some of the nutrients. The more the water, the more nutrients leach out.

Too much water fades the color out, too. If you cook black beans, for instance, in the least

amount of water so there is very little left over when they are done, they retain their purple-black

color very well. If you cook them in plenty of water, they fade to a grayish-purple. As a rule of

thumb, add 2 cups of water to each cup of dry beans you begin with. As you check for

tenderness, you can add a little more if the liquid is too low.

Should you use salt in the cooking water? Some cooks claim that cooking beans in salted

water takes more time and they recommend adding salt late in the cooking process. Some even

recommend cooking beans without salt. I tested both ideas, and found to be another myth. In the

no-salt water, the same beans cooked to just about the same degree of tenderness in the same

time as in the salted water. The real difference was in how they tasted. The unsalted batch was

flavorless, bordering on unpleasant. Cooked in unsalted water, the natural salts of the beans

migrate into the water and are lost. Add ¼ teaspoon of salt for every cup of water you use, and

your beans will always taste round, nutty, full-flavored.

Washing and sorting

Then there's the myth of carefully washing and sorting beans to remove any foreign

objects. Cookbooks still recommend this step, but modern cleaning methods, using pressurized

air, have all but eliminated any foreign particles in packaged beans. But you still have to wash

them thoroughly, because dry legumes are not washed before packaging. They store better and

longer with as little moisture as possible.

Tips from the chef

It is a good idea to use two or three different-colored beans in varying sizes to provide

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