Don’t throw out the soaking water with all the minerals and flavor. Instead, throw out the book that tells you to do so.

Melissa Hamilton and Christopher Hirsheimer, quoting Diana Kennedy, in Canal House Cooks

The more you know about rice and beans, the more the dish inspires you as a cook and delights you as an eater.

John Thorne, Serious Pig

Few kitchen chores are simpler than cooking beans.

Mark Bittman, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian

After you been having/Steak for a long time/Beans, beans taste fine

Shel Silverstein, “Beans Taste Fine”

Beans are a food of impassioned opinion. Why this is so I cannot say. But few foods elicit such a strong response where preparation is concerned. To soak or not? If yes, for how long? Is tap water suitable? Come cooking time, should the soaking water be discarded or used to cook the beans?

Once the beans make it into the pot–and we’ll get to that pot–discussion turns to what seasonings should accompany the beans, and when best to add them. Discussions about when to add salt is a lively topic, with prevailing wisdom to wait until the beans are nearly done, advice breaking every rule cooks otherwise learn about salting food. What better way to unnerve the anxious beginner?

Every step of the bean cooking process leaves room for argument. And argue people do.

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Sooner or later the question of digestion arises. Beans cause gas. Every bean-eating culture has a method of dealing with this: asoefetida, ginger, fennel. Most helpful is gradually adding beans to your diet, rather than consuming them at irregular intervals.

Lacking an appropriate photo, I give you hot sauce.

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For years I thought myself a hopeless bean cook. Even as I learned to bake, pressure can, and confit, I remained incapable of producing an edible pot of beans. At infrequent intervals I’d try again, buying dried beans from the market, dutifully soaking them overnight, then simmering them all afternoon. By dinnertime some beans had collapsed into mush. Others remained rock-like. All were inedible. Discouraged, I returned to beans from cans (and jars).

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It wasn’t until I bought a bag of fresh dried beans–I know how oxymoronic that sounds–that I realized were the trouble lay. Or the blame. And it wasn’t with me. After a comparatively brief three hour soak, I poured the beans into my cracked by serviceable Goodwill bean pot and added water to cover. An hour later–yes, one measly hour–I had a pot of perfectly cooked beans.

The first pot.

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It sounds a misnomer to describe dried beans as fresh, or for that matter, stale. But legumes, pulses, pastas, and rice all eventually stale, just as “fresh” food does. The problem is dried foods, unlike their fresh counterparts, usually lack “best by” or “packed on” dates warning the cook they may be far past both.

The only way to avoid stale beans is to shop wisely. Buy your beans at markets with high turnover. Now is the time to visit health food stores and fancy food shops carrying better brands. Look for beans that offer “sell-by” or “packed on” dates. As for expense, even the most pedigreed bean remains inexpensive.

Fresh borlotti beans, bought a few months ago. Cheaply.

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In describing black beans, people often invoke the adjective “meaty.” It’s not a bad adjective. At a time when we’re being told to consume less meat for reasons of health–planetary and personal–I for one welcome black beans and rice into my kitchen. Not that they weren’t here before, but the canned black bean, while serviceable, just doesn’t compare to the dried. Neither canned nor dried replace animal protein; they don’t have to. Black beans–with rice or without–are enough in themselves. Which is why people have been eating them for millenia, and why I was so embarrassed about my inability to cook them.

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A quick note about bean pots. A person can spend hundreds of dollars on a pot designed to cook a food costing less than $5 a pound. Happily, there are ways around this, and you should take them.

I have four bean pots. None cost more than $10. All were bought secondhand. I heartily recommend this method of bean pot acquisition. Search your local Goodwill, thrift shop, or garage sale. If you live near an old-fashioned hardware store, the kind with an extensive kitchenware section, look there, too. Such places once carried bean pots as a matter of course, and didn’t charge the moon for them.

A final note. At the risk of sounding a bit too Northern California for my own good, beans and rice is one of thoses dish that can turn into lifelong quest. It is a dish of endless national and ethnic variations. You can prepare it every day of the year and never make it the same way twice. So please consider the recipe below as one way, but hardly a definitive way. Interested readers are directed to John Thorne’s incisive writing about rice and beans: see Serious Pig and Outlaw Cook. Thorne abruptly fell off the face of the earth some years ago; his devoted fans miss him terribly. Read his books and join the club.