Posted on 12/28/2020 4:33:17 PM PST by mylife
New Year's Day is approaching, which means we need to have a little talk about Hoppin' John. A savory blend of rice and black-eyed peas, it's served alongside collard greens as the traditional New Year's Day meal in the South and, increasingly, in other parts of the country. Eating those two dishes will ensure prosperity in the new year, and the collards represent greenbacks and the black-eyed peas coins. Or so they say.
For a long time, if offered a plate of collards and Hoppin' John on New Years, I would have been inclined to say, "keep the change," for I never understood why anyone made a fuss over a mushy mound of rice and black-eyed peas.
My own initial effort at making the dish began with a can of black-eyed peas and store-brand white rice and ended up in the garbage. Later, seeing the error of my ways, I tried starting with dried black-eyed peas, cooking them in homemade chicken stock and goosing them with onions, garlic, and a parade of herbs in a futile attempt to impose flavor on a fundamentally mild dish.
(Excerpt) Read more at seriouseats.com ...
My wife’s family says herring for luck in the new year.
This article is sad. Everyone knows that real Hoppin John starts with a quality smoked ham hock and ends with Tabasco sauce. This past summer I got the opportunity to buy local organic hocks smoked in-house by the butcher. I gladly paid $18 per hock for those bad boys and put them in the freezer. Christmas Eve I made Black Bean Navidad soup with one of them and the other is awaiting fresh black eyed peas for New Years Day. I got almost a pound of meat off the first one and was that soup ever tasty!
I usually take black-eyed peas straight, but Hoppin’ John is good, too. Collards are tolerable, if chopped, spiced with black pepper, and doused with A-1.
(”Don’t throw away your Confederate money, boys, the South shall rise again.”)
Fresh black eyed peas in the long pod are absolutely delicious sauteed with onions, garlic, and lean beef. Hard to find fresh peas in the pod though.
And washed very, very well...
I am a southern boy. My girlfriend is from PA. I don’t believe she had eaten a single plant of any type prior to our relationship. Now she goes for the veggies first! There will be Hoppin John and collards at our house this Friday.
>> “the collards represent greenbacks and the black-eyed peas coins” <<
I didn’t like collards or black-eyed peas, but was told by my mother that eating them would bring money. (Oddly enough, though we ate then, we remained poor.) I like eating them as a tradition, but not as a dish.
Well, here in Pennsyltucky in we enjoy roast pork, sauerkraut and whipped potatoes on New Years Day.
The smell of my great aunt’s black-eyed peas simmering on the stove with ham hock and fatback is a forever childhood memory.
I’m not a black-eyed pea fan
I’ve only had it once that it was REALLY good.
The bar at the Savannah Hilton, New Years Eve, 1975. Freebie food with a drink.
Every other time I’ve had it, it was mediocre at best, often horrible. I’d pay good money for a big bowl of some made exactly like that one from ‘75.
Yer mamma has a sense of humor :)
That sounds pretty good. The only thing I would add is vinegar.
You don’t like Lima beans either.
I think there might be something wrong with you...
A childhood memory from my Southern upbringing as well...I never tried to make Hoppin John until I had moved out to the West. I couldn’t find ham hocks anywhere except for these sad little pig knuckles they would sell in the grocery store around this time of year. One year I went through all the trouble of making the dish and only got a tablespoon of meat out of the 2 hocks they had sold me! So when I learned that my local hipster butcher was buying whole organic hogs and making sausage this past summer, I asked him if he would smoke a couple of hocks for me. He called me when they were done and I almost choked at the price, but it was so worth it. They were beautiful and added such a yummy flavor.
You can keep yer garbanzos too!
We always have and love it. Gotta have some smoked pork in it though and some Louisiana hot sauce (Tobasco).
I’ll help you haul those out the back door! bleck!
I used to get 2 smoked hocks for 50c not that long ago, it always goes in the bean pot, but not blackeyed peas...
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