[Sca-cooks] Re: Sca-cooks beans won't cook

[UrthMomma at aol.com]

Old beans neither sprout well  nor cook well. Old beans can be ground into a 
meal or flour and cooked as a soup or snuck into bread that way. I don't know 
the food science behind it, but that's what most Mormon cookbooks advise to do 
with beans that haven't been used within a year or two in the food storage 
rotation scheme of a years' supply that church members are urged to have in 
store.

You could try pressure cooking your beans. 15 pounds for 45 minutes might 
reduce them to a mush . . . or useful ammo for a pellet gun. YMMV. I tried it 
with old pintos and got mush, which was ok as I was making refried beans. 

the other Olwen

In a message dated 12/29/2003 4:41:53 PM US Eastern Standard Time, 
sca-cooks-request at ansteorra.org writes:

> Ok, I started a pot of black-eyed peas yesterday.  I started with dried 
> peas
> that have admittedly been sitting on the shelf for a couple of years.  I did
> a quick boil, turned the heat off and let them sit and soak for a couple of
> hours.   Drained that water off and started with fresh, then applied
> not-quite boiling temperatures to it for several hours.  Added a ham bone.
> Cooked for several more hours.  Then more.  Then I went to bed.  Then I got
> up, still had crunchy beans, added more water, went out shopping.  Came
> back, still have crunchy beans.  These things have been on the heat for 24
> hours now (in addition to the pre-boil and soak), and are yet to show any
> signs of getting past the crunchy stage.
> Now, I've had this happen before with old dried black beans, but never with
> any other kind of bean.  I figure after a while even the driest bean will
> cook, no?  NO!!
> Is there anything I can do to save this pot-o-beans, or should I give up,
> throw it out, and use the frozen ones I just bought?
> Christianna
>