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Some Kitchen Kinks: Beans

The seeds of the sugar pea are tender and fine flavored. BEANS Beans are served as a vegetable in three stages of growth, namely, the tender young pods, the fresh seeds, and the dried seeds. The pods are known as green or string beans and as butter beans, depending upon the variety. String beans make one of our most delicious vegetables, if young and properly cooked. They should be gathered before the seeds begin to form. In this state the bean is sweet, delicate, and tender, but not a highly nutritious food.

Shelled beans, both dried and fresh, particularly the former, contain a large percentage of nitrogenous matter. The dried, ripe, shelled beans are apt to produce flatulence and sometimes colic. This trouble is largely due to the hull or skin and the germ, and may be remedied in a great measure by proper cooking, and, when possible, the removal of the hulls. The best forms in which to eat dried beans are in soups and purées. Beans that have been thoroughly stewed or baked under the right conditions may be eaten by people who live a good deal out of doors. Fat of some kind is necessary in the cooking of beans. The fat has a softening influence on the composition of the beans, and, since this vegetable has a very small percentage of fat, it is very desirable to supply this element either when cooking or when serving the vegetable. When possible, beans should be cooked in soft water. Dried beans are always hard when raw and have a strong acrid flavor. To soften them and remove the strong flavor, the vegetable should be soaked in cold water, and then brought to the boiling point in fresh cold water. This water should be thrown away and the cooking be finished in fresh water. A little soda in the water in which the beans are soaked and in the water in which they are first scalded will help to soften and sweeten the vegetable.