Jim, A traditional method for cooking black chickpeas is to soak for eight hours, then to hang in damp cheesecloth for eight hours, to germinate the seed, to have it at it's most nutritious. You may be on the right track here, I think I'll give it a go....that is, if I ever get organised enough to plan what I'm cooking more then a day ahead ;-) Tara -- ______________________________________________________ Tara Deen School of Geosciences Division of Geology and Geophysics Building FO5 University of Sydney NSW 2006 AUSTRALIA Phone: 61-2-9351 4271 Fax: 61-2-9351 0184 Mobile: 061 410 538 655 email: tara@es.usyd.edu.au ______________________________________________________