French, or String or “Snap” Beans.
Break off the tops and bottoms and “string” carefully. Then pare both edges with a sharp knife, to be certain that no remnant of the tough fibre remains. Not one cook in a hundred performs this duty as deftly and thoroughly as it should be done. I have heard several gentlemen say that they could always tell, after the first mouthful, whether the mistress or the hireling had “strung” the beans. It is a tedious and disagreeable business, this pulling bits of woody thread out of one’s mouth when he wants to enjoy his dinner.
Cut the beans thus cleared of their troublesome attachés, in pieces an inch long, and lay in cold water with a little salt for fifteen or twenty minutes. Drain them, and put into a saucepan of boiling water. Boil quickly, twenty minutes if well-grown—less if small—at any rate, until tender. Drain in a cullender until the water ceases to drip from them. Dish with a great spoonful of butter stirred in.
To my taste, beans need to have a bit of bacon boiled with them—whole, or chopped into bits that dissolve in the boiling. It mellows the rank taste you seek to remove by boiling.