Survival Cooking 101: Beans

Beans, beans, the magical fruit. The more you eat 'em, the more you--

Well hey there!

Today's Survival cooking 101 is about everyone's favorite food...beans. So famous, it even makes up part of the motto of survivalists: beans, band-aids, and bullets.

As much as we love meat, we do eat beans. Sometimes, just for fun. Unfortunately, beans aren't always the easiest thing to fix, though. They take much longer than most foods to get prepared (up to 2 hours), and often they...well, they taste rather bland unless you know what you're doing. Still, there is a reason why legumes are eaten the world over. Adding a legume together with a grain (pinto beans and corn bread, lentils and rice) makes a complete protein. Gardening-wise, beans actually add nitrogen to the soil, which aids in feeding other plants. They provide necessary fiber to keep you from getting colon cancer and lower both blood sugar and cholesterol. They also store better than meat does. Look down on beans if you want, but they were a staple of the explorers, woodsmen, pioneers, and cowboys that made our three countries great from the equator up to the arctic circle.


The traditional American (and yes, when I say "America", I mean Mexico and Canada as well) way of fixing beans is to cook them with small amounts of meat. In the U.S., this was usually pork, as pigs were one of the cheapest and easiest of the fat-bearing animals to raise. The most common excuse for this is that it "adds flavor". Well, yes, it does do that, but truthfully even the smallest amount of pork adds the fat that beans lack. We've all heard that fat is the enemy, but fat is necessary for living, and even for the developement of small children's brains. (Our problem is the amount and types of fat we are consuming). This combination of a small amount of fat combined with the protein of the combined bread and beans provides the same nutrition that steak and potatoes would provide, but at a much lower cost (not to mention, the beans are healthier for the heart and colon). A ham bone with even the tiniest amount of meat on it adds tons of flavor to bean soups.

If you have religious reasons for not eating pork, then I suggest a bit of fatty beef. The fat off of briscuit is most often used, but you could also just as easily add part of an ox tail. You could look into suet as well, but some suet is not Kosher, so take care when purchasing shelf-stable suet.

Vegetarians can purchase vegetable suet or use vegetable oils, but frankly...I can't vouch for the taste. Sorry, but I couldn't hack a vegetarian diet for more than a couple of weeks.

Onions, peppers (either sweet or hot) and garlic are other things generally added to beans...definately for flavor, but they add some of the veggies we also need...and they also provide those health benefits the ancient Greeks knew long ago. We grow these, along with tomatoes, in our own garden.

Tomatoes are another common item to cook beans with. The high acid of tomatoes allows beans to get soft enough to eat, but not mushy. Growing tomatoes, a food native to the American continent, was a lot easier for the pioneer or for the ranch house than importing and storing vinegar made from grapes (and in my experience, tomatoes are among the easiest garden plant to grow). I can imagine cookie being given green tomatoes as part of the food store, and letting them ripen in his wagon for the month or so as they follow the herd. Brown sugar (made from maple syrup) would have cut down on that acidic flavor. Hmmm...are you begining to see how barbecue developed?

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There are a great variety of beans and other legumes out there which can provide you not only with nutrition, but also interest. Pinto beans are common in Hispanic-style food, while black beans are gaining in interest. White beans are the most oft used in barbecue. Mom always made black-eyed peas for "luck" on New Year's eve. There are also lentils, chick peas, great northern beans, kidney beans, lima beans, navy beans...phew! A magical food.

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To cook beans, soak overnight in cold water, or boil for about five minutes and let it sit for an hour. Then you'll need to cook them. It takes about 1/2 an hour for split peas, lentils, or black-eyed peas; 1 hour for lima beans; 2 hours for most other beans. You will need to use three times the amount of water as you do beans, and use a large pot, because they will plump up!

Refried beans are not "re-fried"...they are simply pinto beans cooked up (often with onions, peppers, and other spices) and then mashed. Sounds kinda grosse, but its easier than pie, and its a staple of Tex-Mex cooking.

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The scariest thing is that as I am writing this article, I'm getting a mental picture of refried beans, spanish rice, and corn bread in my mind. I had to immedietly run upstairs and put a pot of pintos on the stove. Thanks a lot, blog spot. (Grins broadly).

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As I was giving this the final proof-reading, I starting thinking...what about soy beans?

Well, I do like soy sauce. And I do like tofu...as long as the tofu isn't pretending to be something else, like a hot dog. But frankly, I don't know how to make either of these (yet), and I've tried plain uncooked soy beans. I'll stick with pinto beans. Thanks, anyway.