The Frugal Gourmet Cooks Italian: New and Old Worlds, Simplified for the American Kitchen, by Jeff Smith and Craig Wollam (1993).

Some old peasant dishes are so colorful that you feel you need to try the process right away and worry about the flavor later. Well, this one is quaint and Old World, and the flavor is bright and heavy at the same time.

In the old days a wine flask—what we would call a Chianti bottle—was filed with beans and herbs and stock and oil … and then placed in the dying embers of the fire before you went to bed. In the morning, beans for breakfast, lunch, and or dinner.

The wine bottles in the old days must have been much tougher than ours as I am not convinced that you should place such a bottle in the embers of a romantic fire. Besides, I doubt that you have a dying fire in your apartment just before going to bed. Better you should use a water bath on the top of the stove.
Carlo Middione, author of The Foods of Southern Italy and chef/owner of San Francisco’s terrific restaurant Vivande, serves this dish at catering parties. It is great fun to dump cooked beans from a wine bottle onto the plates of your guests. Some dishes are just plain fun. This is such a dish. Craig suggested an old-fashioned milk bottle for this dish rather than the Chianti bottle. The neck of the old milk bottle is much wider than the wine bottle’s and you will find serving to be much easier. Find these real milk bottles in junky antique stores anywhere in the country. Worth the search and worth the dish!”

Drain off some of the cooking liquid, if you want, to use in soups. Have your guests add salt and pepper to their taste if needed. Freshly grated Parmesan cheese might be a welcome garnish.

BEANS IN A FLASK

Serves 4 as a side dish

1-quart old-fashioned glass milk bottle or heavy glass wine carafe, “buy a heavy one from Italy and avoid the lighter versions from the Orient found in import houses” or a 750 ml. Chianti bottle with the decorative basket removed
1 C northern white beans, placed in a bowl, covered with 4 C cold water, allowed to soak overnight, then drained
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp chopped fresh parsley
1 tsp chopped fresh sage
½ tsp chopped fresh rosemary needles
½ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper, preferably freshly ground
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Cold water

Add drained soaked beans to bottle in layers with garlic, parsley, sage, rosemary, salt and pepper, tapping bottle on counter a few times to make beans settle evenly in bottle. Add olive oil and enough cold water so that it is just even with the level of beans. Place a heavy heat diffuser in bottom of a tall kettle “or you might make a nest of aluminum foil to hold the bottle. Wad it up a bit,” set bottle firmly in middle, “anything to keep it off the bottom of the kettle,” place bottle on diffuser or aluminum nest inside kettle, fill kettle with enough water so that water is 1 inch higher than level of beans in bottle, bring to a boil, reduce flame and simmer 1 to 2 hours or until all is tender, leaving both bottle and kettle uncovered and adding hot water to kettle as water level lowers but maintaining a gentle simmer. Remove bottle from kettle. “Careful! This is hot!” Serve the beans at the table by shaking or pouring them out of the bottle into individual servings.