Thursday, December 30, 2010
Eats Why the black-eyed pea?
Posted by Max Brantley on Thu, Dec 30, 2010 at 7:20 AM
- roadfood.com
- GOOD LUCK: A mess of black-eyed peas.
An op-ed writer in the Times writes about the black-eyed pea's place as a food item of good fortune at the opening of the New Year.
Just as nobody is sure of the origin of the name Hoppin’ John, no one seems quite certain why the dish has become associated with luck, or New Year’s. Some white Southerners claim that black-eyed peas saved families from starvation during the Union Army’s siege of Vicksburg in the Civil War. “The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food” suggests that it may come from Sephardic Jews, who included the peas in their Rosh Hashana menu as a symbol of fertility and prosperity.For African-Americans, the connection between beans and fortune is surely complex. Perhaps, because dried black-eyed peas can be germinated, having some extra on hand at the New Year guaranteed sustenance provided by a new crop of the fast-growing vines. The black-eyed pea and rice combination also forms a complete protein, offering all of the essential amino acids. During slavery, one ensured of such nourishment was lucky indeed.
Whatever the exact reason, black-eyed peas with rice form one corner of the African-American New Year’s culinary trinity: greens, beans and pig. The greens symbolize greenbacks (or “folding money”) and may be collards, mustards or even cabbage. The pork is a remembrance of our enslaved forebears, who were given the less noble parts of the pig as food. But without the black-eyed pea, which journeyed from Africa to the New World, it just isn’t New Year’s — at least not a lucky one.
Any day that includes black-eyed peas rich with pigmeat, a side of creamy cole slaw and a cast-iron skillet full of cornbread is not a bad day.
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
I'm gonna be soaking me some, cooking them with bay leaf, cayenne, one slice of bacon, mixed with rice and a cold dos xx. Good ol American food!
Rice and BEP only meets all the essential amino acids IF one adds a dab of bacon or butter.
I had some prepared ala India style, cooked with fresh peppermint and a touch of what I sensed as coriander. Yummy.
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eL, I'm lovin' me some of the first(esp. dos xx), but be keerful with them furrin spices--you're messin' with the REAL holy trinity--PGP(peas, greens, pig). thanks, Max--gotta have cornbread in cast-iron
I fix mine in an electric crockpot. Just think how much better they will be when cooked in a crockpot powered by the fresh electricity from McNab! Don't mean to stir things up.
And where will ol Louie's water come from wherein he cooks his 'lectric pot peas?
Naturally from all around him. In just a few short years Louie will be able to boast of arsenic and mercury levels in his 'lectric pot peas.
It's funny how mercury works. It fools the brain into sensing it's a molecule of oxygen so the filters let it in. Certain parts of the brain begin to atrophy and by the time it's detected the victim is bat-shit crazy and there's absolutely nothing the Mds can do.
So ring in the New Year with some fresh 'lectric pot mercury peas. For the first two or three years your wife will just think you're being a wise-ass and forgetful. Maybe she already does.
My mother, a native of Jasper County, Mississippi, said that if you eat black-eyed peas on the first day of the year, you surely will eat better the rest of the year. Nevertheless, I recall being very fond of black-eyed-peas-and-ketchup as a kid.
My dad, born at the start of the depression so that he knew bad without any memory of having been better, often exclaims, there is no better tasting food than black eyes rewarmed the 2nd or third time. If I was the richest man in the world, I would still eat reheated black eyes. But I would live in a bigger house and drive a fancy car.
Citizen, your dad and I are contemporaries. When I was a kid, the black-eyed peas were cooked with a chunk of salt pork, not bacon since bacon itself was an entree for breakfast or any other meal. And yes, leftover, reheated black-eyed peas were just as welcomed as on the first go-round. We ate the peas all through the year, but having them on New Year's Day was an absolute must and still is.
Jerry Clower told a story from his childhood in southern Mississippi where one afternoon, whena tornado brewed up, one of his neighbors down by Route 4, lacking a storm cellar or "'fraidy hole," went out and laid down in the middle of his pea patch. The storm blew by and left the man and his home unscathed. When the neighbors asked him why in the world he had done what he did, the man simply replyed, "That little pea patch out there has saved my life so many times over the years [from starving], i just naturally figured it would protect me from that storm, too."
Blackeyed peas are a favorite of mine, and I can remember many a New Year's pot of them, whether it was cooked in a family environment or an old peach tin, "hobo style," while off in the service... it's the one thing I can't do without this time of the year... or during the rest of the year, either.
Jerry Clower told a story from his childhood in southern Mississippi where one afternoon, whena tornado brewed up, one of his neighbors down by Route 4, lacking a storm cellar or "'fraidy hole," went out and laid down in the middle of his pea patch. The storm blew by and left the man and his home unscathed. When the neighbors asked him why in the world he had done what he did, the man simply replyed, "That little pea patch out there has saved my life so many times over the years [from starving], i just naturally figured it would protect me from that storm, too."
Black eyed peas are a favorite of mine, and I can remember many a New Year's pot of them, whether it was cooked in a family environment or an old peach tin, "hobo style," while off in the service... it's the one thing I can't do without this time of the year... or during the rest of the year, either.
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