Friday, January 06, 2006
In the Americas rice-and-bean dishes are associated primarily with peoples of African ancestry, and with justice...Hoppin' John is the signature dish of South Carolina, black and white. As Helen Woodward wrote in her receipt for it in Two Hundred Years of Charleston Cooking (1976): "South Carolinians, like my husband, who have been away from home a long time, if they feel a culinary homesickness, always long for something called Hoppin' John, with the accent on John." Yankee though I be, I too get yearnings for it because it is such a satisfying dish; if, in addition, it had associations with home and the days of my youth, those feelings would be even more intense, I'm sure. Fortunately, although it seems so rooted in its home territory, it is a dish that travels well, always supposing that one can find the proper peas -- and black-eye peas are everywhere available in the United States -- and the proper receipt, which must be a home grown South Carolina receipt.
-- Karen Hess, The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection (University of South Carolina Press, 1992)
Posted by
Bakerina at 11:51 PM in
valentines
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naaaaahhh, i’ve got a vat of it in my fridge, leftover from new years, and it’s never been outta florida. lately I may have been putting creole spice on it, as is my wont these days, but hoppin’ john was my grandfather’s, and he was in florida all his life (they came down from Alabama after The Woah.) those coastal southerners claiming where they shouldn’t again.
Oh, I am a bad, bad little person. My first thought was “Oh! Bakerina is baking with maggots. How odd” I have been sufficiently punished- after looking more closely, my stomach reared up and started howling for a taste. So now I’m hungry and contrite. A very fine end to the week pour moi.
heeeeee. e, you could probably answer this for me: Is Zatarain’s still alive and kicking? For all of my fooling in the Scrine knitting adventure yesterday, I was serious about trying my hand at root beer, and all of the websites I’ve studied said that Zatarain’s root beer extract is the way to go.
Razz, you’re back! I needs must update your URL! It’s so good to see you. Contrition is not necessary, though.
I’m excited to read more. I made this for the first time on New Year’s, and my god it tasted good. But it was all a little glurby—I’m sure I did something not quite right. Teach me, Bakerina!
I was a bad, bad southerner, and did not make Hoppin’ John for New Year’s. I did make cornbread and greens (kale, not collards, but greens all the same), but I realized on New Year’s morning that I did not, in fact, have any dried black-eyed peas, and I couldn’t manage to get myself out of the house to get any. I’m hoping that I didn’t mess up my luck for the year too badly. I’m looking forward to enjoying yours vicariously!
absolutely alive and kicking. i made a zatarains herb rice to go with the black eyes on 1/1/2006 (i, too, almost forgot but spanglemonkey reminded me of luck spells on new years and i “remembered” just in time--i had the dried peas in the cupboard, though, as usual.) i prefer my rice separate form my peas, which I then combine on the plate. glurby they are, but if they tasted good, then that’s the ticket.
oh, i hadn’t thought, perhaps you mean alive and kicking after the hurricane and if that’s the case, I don’t know. production may be interrupted, that is true, but I’m sure not stopped altogether since it’s a going concern all over the south. I’ll check out the root beer stuff and see what i can find. i need to be goin over there again soon, anyway; the place i usually stay came back up in December and i haven’t gotten there yet.
hey, just got back from a buckwheat zydeco gig here and it was heaven on earth. they’re booked to play a cruise to jamaica and we were the beneficiaries of the layover, outisde in 40 degtree weather at the local blues smokehouse. mmmmmm.
forgot to mention that in new orleans this is eaten with cabbage for money. the cabbage part didn’t get to florida in time for me to utilize it this year, so i’m eating double now hoping the week’s delay won’t hurt the spell too much; i need money. chuck has a great recipe for the whole meal over on his blog looka!
http://www.gumbopages.com/looka/archive/2006-01.html#3
ah!-Somewhere in my apartment is a small bottle of the very Z’s rootbeer extract of which you speak! I bought it in N.O. 2 years ago, at Central Grocery, and then didn’t follow up. I wonder if it is still good. I wonder where the hell I put it. Please let us know if you do this! I have long dreamed of homemade root beer…
BTW, have you tried the Anson Mills Carolina Gold rice? It made some very good rice pudding. I haven’t tried anything else yet with the little I have left from what I ordered. Maybe your rice bread will be the way to go. But it does seem like it ought to be just the thing for Hopping john.
However, this very morning I’ve been making soup beans from my never-ending sack of Dove Creek Pintos and a ridiculous outsized ham shank,, and cornsticks to go with. This is a pretty big pot of beans. After I’ve used up this lot, it may be awhile before I feel like eating many more dried legumes. So the Hopping John may be some time off.
Madame Bakerina, your kind words warm my heart sun-deprived heart (it’s been almost 2 weeks steady of grey up here). I’m deeply touched by the warm welcome, and the rememberance of my wee attempts at the blogosphere. I am, indeed, now back (although as far as reading your blog, I’ve been by nearly every day), so please, pop on over and say hello.
Zatarains with the damn salt and all.
I only ate six black-eyed peas this year. One should be enough, it would only be fair. I mean the luck and the luck one pea should be enough.
We had the best of intentions. We bought our black-eyed peas on New Year’s Eve--screw your scandals, we had enough to worry about without soaking and pots and hamhocks--but yes we bought our little spotted kidneys at Kenny’s Smokehouse on Maryland and Eighth Streets NE, Washington, D.C.--and yes the Redskins, offensive as hell name aside, are in the playoffs--and the black-eyed peas from there, purchased on New Year’s Eve I said, were not so bad. Unfortunately I only ate six. Flying out the next day and my mother, the sainted mother, but seriously of course she is a saint--I am a good old boy--setting out the white plastic tub New Year’s Day knowing of the packing and the checking of flight times and the last goodbyes to the dog, god help her might die at anytime, here was the tub and here was the insipid salty cold bean broth, but here too were the New Year’s Black-Eyed Peas. Here was the hope of the mother, who claimed against some evidence and supported by other--always the case with superstitious southern cooking--that 2005 had not been so bad and that we HAD to eat our peas, the visiting Mary and I, before we went of to the airport in the van with the mostly flat tire, intent on the overheat--and, surprisingly, it didn’t, thought my mother, I know, wished it would have.
So I ate about six peas and claim the luck of pots and pots teeming with un-named, unclaimed pork contributants. Freakin’ happy new years to that.
Jen, what the hell rice supplier do you have? Those are the most beautiful white long grains, I can understand the taking for maggots.
Owen
P.S. I love your blue...pot. What the hell is that called, that pot. I have the exact same one except mine is orange. I love that freaking enameled cast iron. Mine came from the thrift store, with skillet, Le Crassmyass, or some french word, both for eight dollars! I am perpetually, and not only that but often and most times, shy to name my...pot. What do you call that exact size and shape of cookpot?
le creuset calls them french ovens. i’ve always heard dutch oven. this from the only woman around who’s actually broken one. damned thing hopped right off the dryer bang on the tile floor, sprong, crack cast iron pot on de flo all de money leak out. lotsa money in those things.
Broke one, off the dryer! Whey they hey? Your story, Elithea, is strange. I think you were trying to kill that dryer. Still, appliance slaying tendencies aside, I appreciate the proper name(s) for my orange, once thought to be unbreakable, pot, Le Creuset--somebody tells me that at least once a year and I forget again. Whenever I make enough money to buy one new I’m going to have a hell of a lot of fun at Cooks of Crocus Hill. Thanks.
Oh, babies! Who’d have dreamed that such vigorous and enthusiastic dialogue could come from one little picture? Not me, although I certainly should have, considering how smart and kind everyone is around here. I’ve been trying to write the follow-up post, as well as starting some other posts, but today has been a bit of a crunchy day, and I’m not happy with anything I’ve written. I can say in the meantime, though…
e is right: The pot is a Le Creuset Dutch oven; I think it’s a 4-quart.
Shauna, I did indeed see your New Year’s Day post, and I think I know why your batch came out a bit glurby, and how you can fix that. All will be revealed, I promise.
Oh, Owen, you do make a girl blush. The rice is basmati, which I used just because it’s the rice we have around. I buy it in 11-pound bags from the Pakistani grocery down the street; it’s gorgeous rice and it’s dead cheap. I’ve never tried the Carolina gold that Lindy mentions, but I’ll bet it’s great. You definitely want long-grain rice, though, as short grain will make it sticky, and traditional Hoppin’ John, according to Mrs. Hess, is a bean pilau, i.e. beans and dry (but not dried-out) rice. But I promise that complete directions will be on the way, really and truly!
One of my resolutions is to add more grains into my diet. If you post the recipe for that gorgeous pot of grains, I promise to try it!
here is some info from a Times-Picayune article, via chuck: First, the good news: “Leidenheimer French bread is available for po-boys once more. Zatarain’s is up and running again on the West Bank, with Federal Emergency Management Agency trailers for some employees. Chisesi hams made it back in time for Christmas.
The bad news: Crystal hot sauce continues to be in very short supply, and the company will not return to its World War II-era plant in New Orleans.
And there’s some good news and bad news in one package: In late September and October, shoppers were standing in store aisles and openly grieving for Patton’s hot sausage, but, Dorignac’s Assistant Manager Ray Bordelon said, “We finally started getting it back in again… It’s in limited supply.”
more at: http://www.nola.com/food/t-p/index.ssf?/base/living-1/1136446030259690.xml
as for de pot: i put it on toppa the dryer because the washer and dryer, being in the kitchen, form an auxiliary if temporary holding pattern counterspace when not washing and drying. only problem is i later started the dryer while de pot was still on there and it rumbled de pot right off and onto the terra cotta tile floor clang crack and now it’s out in the **ahem**garden**ahem*(jungle) wanting to be a vessel du jardin. now the lid, it got a long crack across its top but only in the enamel so i still use that. but I don’t have no big pot. when i was setting up this house i bought a whole set of the things for about the cost of one in some catalog (cook’s, maybe) so now i can’t see paying about the same thing to replace just the one, you know? not to mention i don’t have it now anyway, the $$$. does show how you’re paying for the name, not the manufacture, that pricing policy.
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naaaaahhh, i’ve got a vat of it in my fridge, leftover from new years, and it’s never been outta florida. lately I may have been putting creole spice on it, as is my wont these days, but hoppin’ john was my grandfather’s, and he was in florida all his life (they came down from Alabama after The Woah.) those coastal southerners claiming where they shouldn’t again.