The bean thing

[Ldychef2k]

I gotta jump in about liver. The liver's purpose for being is to filter poisons. Why would ANYONE want to eat that? Sorry...just had to say it.

 

[xpc]

I gotta jump in about liver. The liver's purpose for being is to filter poisons. Why would ANYONE want to eat that? Sorry...just had to say it.

It was the early 1980's and in my twenty's when at my parents house for dinner my mother made some liver just for herself the rest of us got real food, on a bet my father said he would eat a piece of liver if I did - he took a bite - the face he made is now impinged in my memory as nothing less than horrifying, as a coward I rebuked and to this day will never get his taste face out of my minds eye.

Not that this has anything to do with it but my first two years of school was in organic chemistry, along with a heaping of biology I learned all about the 400 functions the liver does and you are more than correct in the purpose of the bile sponge.

 

[Wifezilla]

I used to hate liver until I started cooking it myself. Turns out mom and grandma just didn't know how to cook it.

 

[davaroo]

So now I ask what do you do with beans to make them palatable? how do you present them? mix with? etc. I guess I would learn to eat them like skittles when hungry enough but do I really need a dried june bug scab stored for ten years?

As it is now I only shop maybe 6 times a year and during the infamous ice storm of 2009 fared better than most because I always have a few months of food handy but no beans.

Thanks for any enlightenment

As you suggest, the first thing to do is be hungry. That is the best seasoning for any food.

Many people use beans as an ingredient in soups. Some are more like filling stews, still others are clear and light broths. They can also be cooked with salted or smoked meat, mostly pork, to extend that precious food. Most bean dishes are at their best like this, IMHO, and I suspect most of our cultural uses started that way.
Baked beans and the many bean soups have their roots in these uses.

You can also mash them when cooked and mix them with grains and flour/meal to make cakes. When fried in oil, these "patties" are both filling, vegetarian and nourishing. Cooked beans can also be mashed into a paste and seasoned with spices and oils, then eaten as a spread on toasted breads.

Too, all beans can be harvested when still in the green, "milk" state. Keep in mind that ALL beans come from pods, just like the familiar "green beans." In fact, the name has nothing to do with their color, but rather refers to when they are harvested. Even our beloved pole and bush beans will mature and cure into edible dried beans - merely the seed for the next generation of bean plants.

All bean pods can be eaten fresh at this early 'milk' stage as a spring and fall 'veggie'. Some are better than others for this use, of course, but they all share this same trait. Excess green beans can be strung on strings and left to dry once matured, then later reconstituted with water and cooked as a pot vegetable. This is one origin of the term "string bean." Such strung beans were known to the American colonists as "leather britches," due to their wrinkled, withered appearance.
Canning in jars is also an old favorite for preserving green beans, one known to most people. it is probably the most popular "self-sufficient" way of preserving these foods.
But, most people are surprised to learn that beans in the pod can also be layer salted in crocks or plastic pails, for later use.

Inevitably, the real trick to beans seems to take advantage of diversity. While they can be eaten plainly, they are rarely best that way. Cook them with other things or add them to other dishes to get the most from them.