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Everyone blithers on with the party line about soybeans being really nutritious, but no one dares speak the awful truth: there are many gorgeous tasting beans in the world, but soybeans aren't one of them. They don't seem to absorb taste as other beans do, nor do they have any kind of rich, or pleasing taste. They just have no taste, and stay that way, no matter what you cook them with.

But then if you look at the history of how they have been used, people have never really sat down to a plate of plain, boiled soybeans. Soybeans have been used as the fodder to make other food products with: tofu, flour, noodles and sauces.

Not even Laurel Robertson, of Laurel's Kitchen fame, could think of a dish featuring soybeans, she may have come up with the best approach for them in North American and UK kitchens. She uses handfuls of soybeans here and there in recipes, so that her family gets something with their superior nutrition in it, but something that they will still like to eat.

Taking a leaf out of her book, the way to approach soybeans might be to cook up a large batch at once, and freeze it in small portions, and then wait to see what ways strike you to use them. If you are making a soup with 3 or 4 other great-tasting beans in it, toss in a handful of your frozen soybeans. If you pass some soybeans through a food mill before freezing, then you open up new ways to use them on the fly: as nutrition boosters in vegetarian dinner loaves and pâtés, in tamale and enchilada fillings. Just never make them a featured item.

If a recipe calls for "soybeans", presume it means the "white" ones, which are actually more of a yellowy-beige colour. These are also called "yellow", to distinguish them from black soybeans.

Cooking Tips
Soybeans have the longest cooking time of any beans. They need to be boiled for about 3 hours (ask your friends of the earth buddies how much energy that uses.) Presoaking them will cut the cooking time down by half an hour. But refrigerate soybeans while you are presoaking, otherwise they may ferment (you won't have this problem with other beans.)

Soybeans never really cook entirely soft -- the best you can hope for is "tender to the bite". If you need to mash them, it's very hard to do so with a fork or a potato-masher; you are better to pass them through a food mill.

Cook 1 cup (3 oz / 85g) of soybeans with 4 cups (32 oz / 1 litre) of water for 3 or more hours. However, if ever you are going to buy canned, already-cooked beans, this might be the time to do it.

Nutrition
Per half cup, cooked: 150 calories, 8g fat, 9g carbohydrates, 14g protein, 1mg sodium, 88mg calcium, 443mg potassium

Equivalents
1 pound dry soybeans = 2 1/2 cups dry soybeans
1 cup dry soybeans = 2 cups cooked soybeans
1 cup cooked soybeans = 175g = 6 oz by weight

History
The Chinese have been growing soybeans for millennia. They were one of 5 "sacred" crops: millet, wheat, barley, rice and soybean.

Soy first reached Europe in the form of soy sauce. Benjamin Franklin sent soybean seed from London to a friend back in North America in 1770. By the early 1900s, our increased ability to analyse food revealed the high nutritional value of soybeans. Soybeans are now a very large crop in North America for animal feed and for oil.

Acknowlegements

Also called:

Other entries for:

Soybeans
Black Soybeans, Edamame, Soy Bran, Soy Milk, Tempe, Textured Vegetable Protein, Tofu

Other entries for:

Beans
Adzuki Beans, Anasazi Beans, Apache Beans, Appaloosa Beans, Aramis Beans, Aunt Emma's Beans, Baccicia Beans, Baked Beans, Bayo Beans (Louisiana), Black Beans, Black Nightfall Beans, Bleu du Lac St-Jean Beans, Broad Beans, Brown Rice Beans, Bush Beans, Canary Beans, Chana Dal, Chickashaw Beans, Chickpeas, Chinese Long Bean, Cow-Itch Beans, Cowpeas, Cranberry Beans, Crochu de Savoie Beans, Dainagon Beans, Dolico Veneto Beans, Dragon Tongue Beans, Dry Beans, European Soldier Beans, Falcon Rice Beans, Flageolet Beans, Flor de Junio Beans, Flor de Mayo Beans, Fortin Family Beans, Fradinho Beans, French Fillet Beans, Garboncito Beans, Garrofo Beans, Good Mother Stallard Beans, Great Northern Beans, Green Beans, Green Flageolet Beans, Green Rice Beans, Hopi Black Pinto Beans, Jackson Wonder Beans, Kahnawake Mohawk Beans, Kunde Beans, Lablab Beans, Lima Beans, Lupini Beans, Madeira Beans, Magpie Beans, Mexican Bayo Beans, Moth Beans, Mung Beans, Navy Beans, Nodak Beans, Pebble Beans, Peruano Beans, Pigeon Peas, Pink Beans, Pinto Beans, Pole Beans, Rattlesnake Beans, Red Ball Beans, Red Kidney Beans, Red Nightfall Beans, Refugee Beans, Rice Beans (Asian), Rice Beans, Rio Zappe Beans, Romano Beans, Runner Beans, Sangre de Toros Beans, Sator Beans, Seluga Beans, Shelling Beans, Tarahumara Canario Beans, Tepary Beans, Tiger's Eye Beans, Tolosana Beans, Toscanelli Beans, Trout Beans, Tweed Wonder Beans, Vallarta Beans, Wax Beans, Wild Goose Beans, Winged Beans, Witkiem Beans, Zolfino Pratomagno Beans

Other entries for:

Legumes
Lentils, Peas