The Historic Problem With Hoppin' John

serious eats ^ | 12/22/2020 | robert moss

[ponygirl]

Hog scraper... you mean where they would boil the carcass and scrape the skin down with Mason jar lids? Never saw it, but he told me about it.

[mylife]

Yeah but it has a handle on it

[Knocker]

Southern cooking is pretty straight forward, it’s not fussy or complicated, and it isn’t recipe driven. You depend on proven ingredients and sorta wing it.
For example if you can’t find good meaty smoked ham hocks, use smoked neck bones, or a smoked turkey leg will do. Also, don’t assume that the name says it all - take red beans and rice, that doesn’t begin to cover the list of ingredients.
It’s similar to the way Yankees approach grits. Even a starving dog wouldn’t eat that stuff. Add some diced ham along with some cheese and float a fried egg on top. And the biscuits, don’t forget the hot buttered biscuits, a little honey and a thin slice of country ham and you’ve elevated an everyday item to an unforgettable treat.

[Don W]

Collards are tolerable, if chopped, spiced with black pepper, and doused with A-1

Then tossed into the compost pile. Same with kale.

[MikelTackNailer]

I'm not a black-eyed pea fan.

I'd bet they're not too fond of you, either.

[amorphous]

If you don't have a left over ham, you can purchase a ham steak from most grocery stores and use a portion to season with.

We do the cabbage, corned beef, blackeye peas over rice, and cornbread every New Years Day. Other days, we like blackeyed peas with BBQ'd hot links over rice - it's a great combination and a Southern thing.

Our blackeye pea recipe is below; we cook 3 lbs at a time, which yields about eight meals for two when frozen in quart ziplock bags ( 2 cups per quart ziplock ). The recipe below is for 1 lb of dried peas:

1 lb bag of blackeye peas
1 tsp toasted sesame seed oil
1 cup of 1/2 - 1 inch cubed ham
2 tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
1/2 onion (chopped)
1/2 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne
1/2 tsp oyster sauce or one chicken bouillon cube crushed
1/2 tsp lemon juice
One small bay leaf

Clean and add dry peas to 6 - 8 quart stockpot.

Cover with water twice the depth of the dry peas

Add salt, sugar, and stir.

Let this soak overnight or until peas have almost doubled in size.

Sautee chopped onions and ham together in a separate pan the next day until onions are transparent and add to pot with remaining ingredients

Cover and cook on a gentle slow boil until peas are soft 1-2 hours.

Stir occasionally, making sure there is enough water to cover peas - don't allow peas to stick to the bottom

Adjust salt and pepper to taste (hot sauce optional)

Remove bay leaf, and serve over rice or in a bowl by themselves - will feed about 4 - 8 people.

Freeze leftovers in quart zip-locks (about 2 cups for two people) and reheat by removing frozen peas from the zip-lock bag and placing them in a covered shallow pan, or pot, on the lowest heat setting possible until steaming.

[mylife]

carraway seed

[mylife]

pj comix says aldi has spiral cut ham on sale today 96c lb

[Jamestown1630]

I never noticed that. But she does very good recipes.

[amorphous]

Good price, but most spiral cut ham is sliced too thin in our area. Even for serving for dinner it tends to lose moisture.

We usually buy a whole ham and slice it ourselves, or ham steaks if we don't feel like eating a whole ham or ham portion for a week or so with only the two of us. We've frozen hams we've bought on sale and thawed back out with good results.

Btw, the recipe above works for Baby Lima beans and also for Red (Kidney) Beans, but substitute link sausage cut into about 1/4 inch slices in place of the ham and add about a teaspoon of creole seasoning in place of the cayenne (or use both). :)

Try putting up the leftovers in the freezer. I think you will be amazed at how good they are when reheated.

[amorphous]

Hog scraping takes experience. You have to have the water at just the right temperature. So, no, you don't boil the carcass, at least we never did, or had the proper equipment to do so. We slowly poured a pot of the properly heated water from a wood fired cauldron over one area at time. Tested the area by pulling on the hair. If it released easily, it's ready to be scraped with a dull butcher's knife. :)

I helped my grandfather butcher many hogs in my youth.

[Jaded]

New Year’s Menu

Black Eyed Peas
Greens
Boiled New England Dinner (Ham and cabbage, blech)
Cornbread

Black eyed peas are fit for ANY TIME.

[Larry Lucido]

First time I had it was in Texas but it was black eyed peas and corn bread.

[tiki]

We eat posole in NM.

[snuffy smiff]

Are you sure we ain’t related in some way? Both my parents were brought up on farms and hog-killin’ time for them both was a real feast. My father LOVES fresh sausage and when he was around 12 or so he ate so much of it he slept-walked himself into a closet! I got put in charge of lard rendering at my maternal grandmother’s farm in the Blue Ridge mountains one year but I somehow managed to scorch the last batch when I let the fire get too hot underneath the black iron pot that was used strictly for that purpose. I caught grief about it for years! Never could get used to that salty ‘sidemeat’ she cooked every morning for breakfast but salting pork to preserve it was the only method she knew and she wasn’t about to change. The parts she didn’t want were given away but she considered fresh pork brains with eggs an absolute delicacy. The very thought still makes me ‘green around the gills’ whenever I think of it...

[ponygirl]

Since I never witnessed a hog killing, I could be misremembering the details he told me. I think he said they would cut a trench into the ground and somehow fill it with hot water. I guess they could have been pouring the water over...but he said they would scrape the hair off with jar lids.

[twister881]

All good information, thanks. Yes, my great aunt used fatback for seasoning, not direct consumption. And hocks to cook with peas and beans, along with the fatback. She also liked to make cracklin’ cornbread. Drew the line at chitlins, though. Just made myself hungry for some sliced tomatoes, green beans, a generous slice of pone, and a pitcher of sweet tea!

[real saxophonist]

I grew up in south Georgia. Blackeyed peas always meant good luck, but I never heard about greens representing money until much later.

[Mathews]

Buy canned if you don’t want to cook Hoppin John or collards.

The Margret Holmes brand Hoppin John is pretty good and the Glory Greens Collards aren’t bad either.

Both are available at Publix, Rouse’s and The Pig. Not sure about wally world or other stores.

[AppyPappy]

You gotta look those greens good. Soak in a cold bath.

Greens and black-eyed peas need good stock, red pepper and country ham. Greens get a shot of hot pepper vinegar and some spring onions while the peas get hot sauce.