Bean Facts of Life: Where do beans come from?

Obvious answer, right?  Beans come from plants.

But how often do you actually see shelled beans (black beans, chick peas, navy beans etc.) in fresh form?  Chances are, if you cook with beans, you're using either canned or dried.  So when I saw a sign saying "black beans" at the Farmers Market, I was intrigued.  I bought about a pound and a half, and then tried to figure out what to do with them.

First of all, how long do you cook them?  Dried beans take hours to cook - you have to soak them for several hours, then at least another hour of cooking time.  Logically, fresh beans wouldn't need as much time because they haven't lost their moisture.  Sure enough, that's the case.  I found cooking directions by googling "shell beans".  You shell the beans (open the pods & take the beans out), and boil the beans in water for about 45-60 minutes, and they're ready to use in any recipe that calls for cooked beans.

So I started to shell the beans.  The pods weren't all that attractive, but inside were beautiful little black beans...

...that took an awfully long time to shell.  About 20 minutes later, I had 1-1/2 cups of black beans, which I put into a pot of water on the stove.  I tested them after 40 minutes, then kept them in for another 10 (50 minutes total).  Interestingly enough, the beans had turned purple during cooking.

The beans were tender and flavorful, but frankly, I couldn't tell the difference between these and cooking beans that started off dried. They cooked in less overall time, but I'm not sure the savings was worth the time spent shelling them.  I did save some of the uncooked beans to plant in my garden next spring - dried beans might be pretty cheap, but if I can grow black beans myself, for free, it would be worth the time spent shelling them.