Blackeye peas are traditionally eaten in the southern United States for luck. I’m going to make mine with a ham steak, some diced celery, diced onion, and chicken broth. Who else will be soaking the beans tonight? How do you make yours? I used to use smoked ham hocks, but I figured that it was cheaper to just use the ham steaks, considering the high price they want for ham hocks these days.
New Year’s just doesn’t work for me without a big dish of blackeye peas.
I will soak my peas tonight. Tomorrow, I will begin cooking them with ham hock. Here’s my trick: After the peas have been cooking for an hour or so, make a roux in a skillet with a couple of tablespoons of flour and a couple of tablespoons of shortening (or lard if you really want them to be good). Add your onion and celery to the roux, along with whatever seasonings you like and a good shot of Tabasco sauce. Stir this all together and then thin it with a cup of the liquid the peas are cooking in. Mix it all up and pour this melange back into the bean pot. Continue cooking until the peas are tender, adding water to the pot whenever you think the peas are apt to burn. Once the peas are tender, if they seem a little soupy mash a half cup or so of the peas into a paste and stir it back into the pot.
Be sure to serve your blackeye peas with turnip greens! (You eat the peas for silver and the greens for folding money.)
My usual New Year’s memories involve shivering outside with a lump of coal, acting as first footer for my mother (Edinburgh-born and raised). No special dinner, though; none of us were enormously keen on haggis, neaps and tatties.
My husband must have Hoppinin John (that’s what he calls it) every New Year. It’s made with black-eyed peas and rice. It tastes like dirt. But I eat some every year 'cause I love him.
We also have to have a tall black man be the first to walk in through the door in the new year. That’s my grandmother used to do too and she wasn’t black.
I’m Southern born, raised, and as far back as records go, but I can’t abide black eyed peas. As Biggirl says, they taste like dirt. I’ll eat one off my wife’s plate, but that’s as far as I’ll go (roux or no roux).
As for the black man through the door first, I think a black haired man will also do in a pinch. But a dark haired woman through the door first in the new year is very, very bad luck.
We’ll be having the traditional pork & sauerkraut this year while watching the 'Eers kick some serious terrapin heinie in the Gator Bowl.