Have never cooked or tasted them?!? Actually looked for canned while out running errands... no luck.

I DO have a small hunka pork to cook with sauer kraut tomorrow... for luck.

I actually found some fresh black-eyed peas at the grocery store and will make them tomorrow. I thought I had a hamhock in the freezer but I was wrong. :( I do have ham so will use some of that. Also having turnip greens, deviled eggs, and cornbread.

We usually have "peas and greens", but instead we're having Christmas dinner, it's the only day that fit everyone's schedule. I did manage to work creamed kale into the menu for the "greens" part, but no black eyed peas.

klseiverd, they aren't like beans, if you've never had them. They have a different texture altogether. Many people don't care for them, they are the least favorite of my bean lovin' southern husband.

Annie

I have a bag of frozen Field Peas to cook tomorrow with rice--I've never actually made Hoppin John and thought I would try it. I'm going to use Vivian Howard's recipe. She is the owner/chef at The Chef and the Farmer in North Carolina and has the show, A Chef's Life, on PBS.

I much prefer yellow eye peas to black eye. But they're much harder to find.

in georgia--in my family growing up we just had the blackeyed peas with cornbread and I'd never heard of Hoppin John till I was an adult. A lot of places refer to the peas with rice as Hoppin John. So you use that name for just the peas? Do you ever cook another type of pea such as field or crowder?

Anyway--it's all delicious. And Happy New Year to you, also!

We never called it Hoppin'. Mom Elsie did a basic pea. Probably canned chicken broth. Both the Black-eyed peas and and collards were the boiled-to-death variety. Peas would even lose their black eyes being boiled away and made the dish gray.

Hoppin' is just a regional addition of a sofrito, mirepoix, or trinity depending on location and taste. Mine starts with onion, celery, garlic, Turkish spices, (this year)..then i'll stir in green onion, sweet red pepper, parsley at the end once soft. Hoping' John is often a meal in itself and not a side dish. Ham and greens usually mixed in. Served over rice.

(peas on the stove now). The braising juices were not that salty after the reverse-brining, so i added two cups of that to the pea water and a chunk of the ham cut off the hock end before it went into the oven. (darn auto-correct keeps pasting in pee instead of pea).

We never had rice. But i'll make a mixed grain with mostly wild rice for a left-over meal.

junco East Georgia zone 8a Hoppin John is peas with rice, you can add other things to it, but traditionally it was blackeyes with rice or field peas in S.GA. I do like to add tomatoes, green peppers etc. and you can make it a meal but it was originally just peas and rice.

My husband, South Georgia born and farm raised, loves all peas and beans so we eat a variety. Field peas, butter beans , black beans etc. but for the New Year it is blackeyed peas, ham, cornbread. He won't eat the greens though.

Yes, I've always known hoppin john as black-eyed or crowder peas with rice, too, although evidently it's pretty hard to duplicate what it's really supposed to taste like, since it was originally made with red cow peas and different rice.

Interesting article on its history:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/12/southern-hoppin-john-new-years-tradition.html

ETA I think I might have posted this here once before, can't remember.

Oh, and we had siberian kale instead of collards, since it's too early in the season for those here.

I was unaware of the midnight NYE tradition for black-eyed peas, but I did buy fresh black-eyed peas at the supermarket and cooked them this morning for lunch. I used the pressure cooker and added vegetable stock, celery, onion, one chopped Italian sausage, some chilies - both mild and hot (from my back yard), three Yukon Gold potatoes (diced), some Bay leaves (also from my yard), and a bit of dried thyme. I considered using rice instead of potatoes, but I like the potatoes better for this and have never had the tradition of serving BEP with rice, although we did always have BEP on New Year's Day. I've never had BEP with sugar added. BEPs are a lot like beans to me - they remind me a lot of lentils, and I often cook them the same way I do lentils.

I do now wish that I had some collard greens or kale.

Absolutely, every New Year's Day. I buy the frozen field peas with snaps, cook them with the trinity, thyme, crushed red pepper, salt, pepper and ham. Serve over rice. I also made a big pot of mixed greens - collards that I got from the grocery, kale and Swiss Chard that I got out of the garden. Corn bread and pickled beets on the side, that's it. We also opened up the bottle of champagne since we fell asleep watching TV and woke up after midnight and didn't want to bother opening it.

My version of Hoppin' John and greens. I prefer tiny field peas and instead of collards, we had roasted brussels. Blessings to all for a very happy new year!

Black-eyed peas are best from dried that were soaked over night, drained, cooked with onion, garlic, poblano and jalapeno peppers, drained, left to cool and dry a bit, then deep fat fried to golden/crunchy/yummy, and dusted with Old Bay. Hey, anything fat fried is good, don't ya' think? They may not bring me luck for the New Year but they sure as heck make my mouth happy.

Looks familiar...

nancy, fried? Now that's a way I've never heard of. Elery loves a pot of beans, nearly any kind, and he'll eat black eyed peas but they aren't his favorite. Yet. Tomorrow is his birthday (well, today, actually, since it's 2 am here. If he doesn't decide he wants to go out after today's big meal with my family for late Christmas, I'm trying those fried peas, I have a bag waiting for me in the pantry and roasted poblanos in the freezer from this year's garden!

Annie

Happy Birthday to Elery! I agree with him 100% on beans and black eyed peas. :)

I had never heard of this New Year's Day tradition (eating BEPs) until a few years ago! BEPs weren't something we ever ate growing up. I must have been well into my 20s before I ever tried one and they didn't thrill me.

torrey and sleeve, your food photos look great!!!! I ate 3 bean salad yesterday, just to cover my bases. :O) BF had to go to ER.... pneumonia on NYDay. :p

Wishing everyone a better New Year!

Been making them for years now. I like to call it Hoppin' John, but it's not very traditional. For yesterday's meal I made a ring mold of buttered rice & put the black-eyed peas (cooked from scratch w/ turkey broth, onions, smoke flavoring, herbs, S&P) in the center & sprinkled w/ chopped parsley.

I never bother to soak the dried peas, just rinse & cover w/ liquid & simmer, adding veg. & seasonings once they're soft. They don't take as long to cook as regular dried beans.

I made some Jiffy cornbread to go with my black eyed peas for dinner last night. I've used it for years, but the last time the cornbread had a "tinny" taste. So, this time, I added an extra egg, a big dollop (probably 2-3 TBS of plain greek yoghurt, and 2 Tbs of sugar. Put it in a cast iron skilled that had been lightly greased and pre-heated in a 400° oven, and baked it for 20 minutes. Oh my, but it was good! It was light, moist and rose nice and high in the skillet. Butter and honey and the black eyed peas with ham hock - just fabulous! Perfect on a cold winter night.

I'm from Central Texas and our tradition has always been: cornbread in the bowl, a ladle of the pea juice on top (but not soupy), then a ladle of peas, with chopped tomatoes and green onions on top. And for me, lots of black pepper over all.

I think we need to have these for dinner some time soon. I had a house full of sickies new years eve so it was lots of chicken soup and also it was the last night of Hannukah so I did potato pancakes. But I'll bet I can still find some nice collards at the store and I got a wonderful new saute/braise/stir fry pan for christmas so I can't wait to have one of my favorite meals again, greens and beans!

L, it's something we like too, I like most "peasant food". We always called it "farmer food", and now it's called "southern food", LOL. But I was born in Michigan and my Grandmother is from Ohio, and we ate a lot of beans and cornbread, but we called it "Johnny Cake". Usually Navy or Great Northern beans, though, whereas Elery's Kentucky/Tennessee family mostly had pinto beans. Our cornmeal was yellow, theirs was white. Ours had a bit of sugar, maybe a tablespoon per batch, his had no sugar. His sister informed me at our first meeting that if it was made with yellow cornmeal and any sugar at all, it wasn't cornbread, it was cake. (grin) I was further instructed that cornmeal MUST be white, there must be no flour in the recipe, and no sugar, or it wasn't "right". I'm a heathen, though, I like it all!

Annie

Annie, do you have white cornmeal available there? I have a hard enough time just finding the yellow here! I've been checking all the local stores for a coarse grind for at least two years... if they carry any cornmeal at all it's always yellow and always fine grind. I prefer cornbread with sugar. :)