A Love Affair With Southern Cooking_ Recipes and Recollections - Jean Anderson [137]
4. Mix in the crushed tomatoes, salt, and pepper, and cook uncovered for about 5 minutes or until almost all the liquid has been absorbed. Taste for salt and pepper and adjust as needed.
5. Scoop the rice into a heated serving dish, sprinkle with the reserved bacon, and serve. Note: I often mix in the bacon before I dish up the rice so that its smoky-meaty flavor has a chance to permeate.
HOPPIN’ JOHN
MAKES ABOUT 6 SERVINGS
According to Karen Hess in The Carolina Rice Kitchen: The African Connection (1992), “Hoppin’ John is one African-American dish that made it to the Big House.” She adds that the appearance of this cowpea pilau in Sarah Rutledge’s Carolina Housewife (1847) seemed to indicate “that the old slave dish had been accepted by some of the most aristocratic elements of the Lowcountry.” As for the recipe’s unusual name, Hess dismisses what she calls the current “pop etymology.” Her own theory, developed after prodigious research, suggests that Hoppin’ John descends from bahatta k-chang, bahatta being a Persian word for “cooked rice,” and k-chang a Malay word for various legumes. Hess further believes that the recipe for Hoppin’ John may have arrived in Africa via Madagascar and that it was carried there by Muslims before making its cross-continental journey to Gambia and elsewhere along the west coast of Africa, which was to become a major rice-growing region. “My construction is logical,” she writes. “Bahatta k-chang and Hoppin’ John both designate rice and peas, products indigenous to Asian and African tropics.”
The recipe here was given to me many years ago by Mary Sheppard, the plantation cook at Middleton Place near Charleston. Although Mary’s Hoppin’ John was made with dried cowpeas, she told me that black-eyed peas are perfectly acceptable. In fact the Hoppin’ John served every New Year’s Day at the old Sir Walter Hotel in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, always contained black-eyed peas. “Hoppin’ John’s supposed to be good luck,” Mary Sheppard told me the day I interviewed her for Family Circle. “You eat it with green s [turnip salad or collards]. They’re ’sposed to be good luck, too.” Note: Some people cook the rice along with the cowpeas. But Mary Sheppard always cooked the two separately and combined them just before serving.
1 cup dried cowpeas or black-eyed peas, washed and sorted but not soaked
4 ounces hickory-smoked slab bacon, cut into ½-inch dice
2½ cups water
1 teaspoon salt, or to taste
1/8 teaspoon ground hot red pepper (cayenne), or to taste
1/8 teaspoon black pepper, or to taste
1¼ cups long-grain rice, cooked by package directions
1. Bring the cowpeas, bacon, and water to a boil in a large, heavy saucepan over moderate heat. Reduce the heat so the water bubbles gently, cover, and simmer for 40 to 45 minutes or just until the peas are firm-tender; drain well.
2. Season the peas with salt, cayenne, and black pepper. Add the rice and toss gently. Taste for salt, cayenne, and black pepper and adjust as needed.
3. Serve hot; this is particularly good with roast pork, braised pork chops, or baked ham.
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TIME LINE: the people and events that shaped Southern Cuisine
1928
Claud A. Hatcher changes the name of his Georgia soft drink firm from the Chero-Cola Company to the Nehi Corporation and soon Nehi beverages are sold all over the South.
C. F. Sauer of Richmond, Virginia, acquires Duke’s Mayonnaise but continues using its plant in Greenville, South Carolina.
Emmett Montgomery opens a hot dog stand in Irondale, Alabama, near Birmingham. Over time, it becomes the Irondale Café and is later immortalized as the Whistlestop Café by actress-playwright Fannie Flagg in her movie Fried Green Tomatoes.
The U.S. Sugar Corporation opens a modern refinery in Clewiston, Florida.
1929
Brothers Benny and Clovis Martin, both former New Orleans streetcar conductors and now owners of a little French Market restaurant,