In this work, the hydration and cooking of common chickpeas (Cicer arietinum) for different hydration degrees were studied. Kinetic models for both cases were developed to describe the evolution of the hydration and the sigmoid-shaped curve of the cooking process. The different cooking times of soaked samples were compared; this included cooking times of unsoaked samples treated with high pressure in the range 275-690 MPa. From the results, it was observed that lower cooking time corresponded to the soaked samples and that the cooking time decreased as soaking time increased. Improvement in the cooking process was not observed with high-pressure treatment, in which the observed cooking times were high and corresponded to values analogous to samples soaked for 90 min. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.