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The popular haricot bean became known as the navy bean when it became a staple food for the United States Navy in the 19th century. Like other dried legumes, prolonged cooking is needed to soften the beans so that they have a rich creamy texture.Cooking beans might seem simple, but there is subtlety to doing it really well. Beans are best cooked in just enough water to soften the cells walls and hydrate the starch granules. Using more water allows the abundant nutrients, pigments, sugars, and other flavorful molecules to leach out. The quality of the water itself is surprisingly important if you want tender beans; hard water with too much calcium or magnesium actually reinforces cell walls and prevents them from softening. Acid water reinforces the pectin that binds cells together, also preventing the beans from quickly softening. Soft, neutral water is better, but adding a touch of table salt actually helps speed softening by displacing magnesium from cell wall pectin, making it easier to dissolve this material. Slow and steady cooking at a temperature between 176 °F to 199 °F / 80 °C to 93 °C—something easy to do by cooking the beans sous vide—ensures a more even hydration of the bean&#39;s protective seed coat and interior. Done this way, you&#39;ll end up with far fewer split beans. Although cooking at a temperature well below the boiling point of water takes much longer, the prolonged cooking has the advantage of breaking down some of the indigestible oligosaccharides into simple sugars that we can readily digest. The upshot: soft, creamy beans with less wind.