I've read many different discussions on dry beans and when to salt or not to salt discussions. But recently I came across an article in Cook's Illustrated on adding kombu while soaking beans and during the cooking stage. They claimed a small piece of kombu ups the umami as well as making the beans creamy soft.
This fascinated me since I'm a big believer in kombu and katsuobushi (bonito flakes). I make dashi and freeze it using the ice cube trays for all my cooking needs.
This morning I started soaking the black eyed peas with salt and small piece of kombu. I soaked for about an hour and proceeded to cook. Since the wisdom of using kombu for stock or other things in Japan is never boil the kombu pieces because it becomes gooey but I continued anyway. The black eyed peas certainly cooked much quicker than what I'm used to cooking and the texture was very, very creamy.
I like to try this method with other beans as well. Maybe they are onto something here.