The BEST Pinto Beans You'll Ever Make (The Soul Food Way)

In 1948, Ruthie Mae Dawson fed seven people out of one pot for a dime's worth of beans. Nobody at that table called it poor. They called it Sunday. Ten rules for the best pot of pinto beans you'll ever make — one pot, under two dollars, feeding six. Why the salt goes IN the soak (the old rule was wrong), why the smoke goes in first, why you never pour off the pot likker, and why a whole onion beats a shaker of powder every time. They never took the bean, honey. They took the knowing. Tonight you get it back. Next time: skillet cornbread, no sugar in it — and exactly who put the sugar there. Keep the old ways. #PintoBeans #SouthernCooking #DepressionEraCooking #BudgetMeals #PotLikker #FromScratch #OldWays