New Year’s : Start the Year With Blackeyes

Here’s a motto that’s good for more situations in life than you can shake a spoon at: Begin as you mean to go on. So, even though you hadn’t planned to serve hoppin’ John on New Year’s Day, change your menu and include it.

Hoppin’ John is a simple dish from the Carolinas: Black-eyed peas and long-grain rice cooked with ham hocks or bacon. Why eat beans and rice on Jan. 1? There’s a tradition in the South that if you do, you’ll have luck all year long.

Moreover, a Carolina Low Country tradition says that if you eat hoppin’ John with a mess of greens, you’ll also have financial reward in the new year. The greens can be collards, mustards or turnip tops--all at their juicy best in winter. Simmer one-half pound smoked pork jowl or neck in four quarts water for half an hour until the water is flavored. Meanwhile, tear three pounds of the leafy parts (from five pounds of greens--the stems are tough) into pieces the size of the palm of your hand. Simmer in the broth uncovered till tender. Collards can take a couple of hours, mustards 20 minutes.

This traditional method for cooking greens is described by Hoppin’ John Taylor in his mouth-watering book, “Hoppin’ John’s Low Country Cooking.” Taylor says the rest of the New Year’s Day meal should be corn bread and twice-baked sweet potatoes--whole sweets baked in a hot oven until tender, cooled, then reheated in the oven. The double baking makes their flesh velvet.

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Where does hoppin’ John’s name come from? Stories abound, but no one knows. Served the year round in the South, this is a dish you can indulge in and have no regrets. It’s nourishing as can be and soul-satisfying. Of course, beans and rice are companions the world over. Separately, their proteins are incomplete; combined, the protein is of the highest quality. Hoppin’ John is similar to chievou niebe , a West African dish. Many people believe black-eyed peas and the dish arrived with the slaves who worked Carolina plantations in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The recipes I’ve seen from across the South don’t vary much: The dish is cooked on top of the stove. But ever since reading that dried beans are incomparable baked in a slow oven (without any soaking) in a covered earthenware dish, I’ll cook them no other way.

Red chiles have a role in most hoppin’ Johns, and I add them. But the first time I made the dish, I also took a leaf from a Southern cookbook that said to serve it with red pepper vinegar. I whomped up a batch. We sprinkled our hoppin’ John with my vinegar and smoke came from our ears. I hooted later when I read the recipe in the light of day and found it called for chiles by the teaspoon, not tablespoon.

Finally, I break tradition by adding a California touch to our hoppin’ John--chopped cilantro. Its sharp spiciness gives a lift to the buckwheat-like taste of the beans.

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In spite of their name, black-eyed peas are not peas; neither are they beans. They’re cowpeas, kin to the Dixie favorite, Southern peas, and the Asian favorite, yard-long beans.

Black-eyed peas are an estimable plant.

You can harvest its pods at the snap stage--like any green bean--when the seeds are not yet visible. They’ll taste unlike any snap beans you’ve ever eaten. To me, the flavor is an irresistible blend of green bean, cucumber, ginger and toasted nuts. The pods especially lend themselves to cooking until tender-crisp in boiling salted water, being drained and dried, then sauted until hot in sweet butter with slivered almonds.

A couple of weeks after the snap bean stage, you can harvest shelly black-eyed peas--when the seeds are lumpy in the pods. Although small and round, they’ll be green and have a texture close to limas. Their flavor is that of the snap beans, but even more so. I simmer black-eyed shellies in a covered skillet in pureed fresh tomatoes thinned with water. They take a half hour to be tender. Delicious sprinkled with summer savory.

You can also roast the seeds at the shelly stage like peanuts.

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A few weeks after the shell stage, when the pods are crackling dry and the seeds inside are cream-white with a small black eye, the pods are shelled and the beans stored for winter. This is when they’re slowly cooked to make cozy dishes like hoppin’ John.

And all the while, you can be tossing the vines’ heart-shaped leaves and purple or yellow sweet pea-like flowers into salads. Try one part each of leaves, blossoms and the ruffled leaves of one pale and one red Salad Bowl lettuce. Dress with hazelnut oil and orange juice.

Black-eyed pea plants grow easily. They’ll crop in poor soil on little water and in great heat, although they’ll give their best when the soil is fertile and vines get average water. But don’t add fertilizer when planting or you’ll get leaves and no beans.

One thing black-eyed peas must have is warmth. Wait to sow until the soil is 65 to 70 degrees, usually late May or June. A raised bed helps warm the earth (mound it four to six inches high). Be sure to order an inoculant for the seeds. This live bacteria makes the nitrogen in the soil available to plant roots. Directions for sowing will be on the package.

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Once sown, the plants need full sun and warm days and nights--65 to 75 of them to reach the snap bean stage. It can be four months from sowing before they mature to the dried bean stage. If your summers are long and hot, grow California Black-Eye, a sure crop. Or have the adventure of growing Guarijio Muni Cafe from seeds produced near the Rio Mayo in Sonora, Mexico.

Where summers are cool or short, vigorous cultivars such as Black-Eye and Queen Anne will give you beans, although at what stage they’ll be when the season ends, you’ll have to see.

In the landscape, black-eyes are pretty and vigorous bushes, growing about two feet high with few or no runners. Grow them in beds about nine inches apart. Hereabouts, they’re little bothered by pests and disease. Sow bright-blossomed verbenas around them and enjoy the butterflies.

Sources

Dried beans are at the market.

Seeds: Black-Eye from Seeds Blum, Idaho City Stage, Boise, Ida. 83706 (allow 60 days to receive order); Inoculant (Burpee Booster) and California Black Eye from W. Atlee Burpee & Co., Warminster, Pa. 18974; Guarijio Muni Cafe from Native Seeds/SEARCH, 2509 N. Campbell Ave., No. 325, Tucson, Ariz. 85719; Queen Anne from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, Box 170, Earlysville, Va. 22936.

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For a vegetarian hoppin’ John, omit the ham hocks. There will be about two fewer servings.

HOPPIN’ JOHN

2 1/2 cups dried black-eyed peas

2 medium-large onions

2 dried red chiles, including seeds, crumbled, or to taste

1 teaspoon salt, plus more to taste

2 ham hocks, to equal about 2 pounds

10 cups boiling water

2 cups long-grain white rice, preferably jasmine or basmati, well rinsed

3 cups roughly chopped cilantro, optional

Fiery Red Pepper Vinegar

Rinse and pick over beans. Place in deep (about 4 1/2-quart) baking dish, preferably earthenware. Cut onion into quarters, then slice 1/4-inch thick. Mix onions, chiles and 1 teaspoon salt into beans. Push ham hocks into beans and add boiling water. Cover and bake in center of 250-degree oven until beans are barely tender, 2 1/2 to 3 hours, stirring once or twice.

Remove baking dish from oven and drain all stock into bowl. Pull out ham hocks. Remove rind and fat, take meat from bones and chop into small pieces. Mix meat, rice and 3 3/4 cups of stock into beans. Cover and return to oven. Bake until rice is cooked, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Dish can be refrigerated 1 to 2 days. Reserve leftover stock.

To reheat, stir in reserved stock and reheat at 250 degrees about 1 hour. Top each serving with cilantro. Pass Fiery Red Pepper Vinegar. Makes 12 servings.

Each serving contains about:

174 calories; 216 mg sodium; 14 mg cholesterol; 2 grams fat; 32 grams carbohydrates; 8 grams protein; 0.99 grams fiber.

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The depth of flavor in this vinegar brings out the best in foods you thought were delicious already. Not for palates that get the vapors.

Fiery Red Pepper Vinegar

1/4 cup crumbled dried red chiles, seeds included

2/3 cup cider vinegar

1/2 cup white vinegar

Combine chilies and vinegars in non-reactive saucepan or microwave-safe vessel. Cover and bring to boil. Strain into bottle or jar, preferably fitted with shaker top--don’t breathe fumes. Stored in cool dark dry place, vinegar will keep indefinitely. Makes 1 cup.