Does a black-eye pea really look like a coin? Or does a lentil for that matter? The idea that collards resemble a stack of cash is certainly less of a stretch, but seeing the symbolism in a bowl of Hoppin’ John or lentil soup (does require a bit of magical thinking. That’s part of what I love about New Years food traditions though. When else does a cheap pot of peas connote richness?
Hoppin’ John is also a rare dish in American cooking in that it embodies a whole system for sustainably growing food: in the lowland South, fields were historically planted with a rotation of rice and what are called either cow peas or field peas. Rice was the cash crop, while the field peas — which include both black-eye peas and heirlooms like Sea Island red peas — both replenished the soil with nitrogen for the next grain crop and provided a cheap source of protein. Collards were in the mix as well, planted not only for their leaves, but for their ability to draw salt out of the low-lying coastal fields, where high soil salinity can be an issue. When you eat Hoppin’ John, you’re getting all of that agricultural richness in one meal.
Much like the indigenous Three Sisters plantings of corn, beans, and squash, it’s a beautiful system with a violent past: the labor, know-how, and even the peas themselves were all stolen from Africa by slavers. The violence was then continued, generation after generation, by slaveowners who relied on Black enslaved people for everything they grew and sold and profited from.
These kinds of systems, where crops aren’t just grown side-by-side but in support of one and other, are a major influence and inspiration for my own gardening. Not only do they help increase soil quality and fertility, but as systems that were historically used for sustenance farming — that is, growing all of your own food — they’re perfect for supplying the Storage Kitchen.
It’s been a few years since I’ve grown cowpeas, which I like to plant in between rows of potatoes, but I grow beans absolutely every year. If cooking peas or lentils at the New Year is a nod at symbolic wealth, having a stash of homegrown beans on hand is the exact kind of richness that I want in my life.
I have a very loose rule that if I have a plant that’s not a legume — i.e., a bean or pea that can fix nitrogen in the soil — I either grow a legume alongside it or plant one in the same spot after that plant is harvested. The ideal version of this is, to me, growing beans up stalks of corn, with meandering squash vines running in between everything. But that kind of genius is hard to come by, so instead it’s spacing the potato hills a little further apart to make space for a row of compact cowpeas running in between (though I have a hard time getting them to fully mature to dry peas in Maine), or following the garlic harvest by tossing handfuls of peas across the broken dirt and covering them with a layer of mulch. Even if a planting doesn’t have time to fully mature, like those post-garlic peas, it will still enrich the soil, and having a supply of peas greens even past the first hard frost is a wonderful thing too.
For the past few years I’ve grown Norridgewock beans, a pole bean variety developed by the Abenaki, one of the tribes that have lived for forever in what is now Vermont and Maine. Beautifully mottled with swirls of maroon and white, the beans cook up plump and creamy, swelling by nearly a third from their dry size, and taste delicious. And unlike the many beautiful heirloom beans that go completely drab after being cooked, they keep a contrasting two-tone coloring even in the pot.
I wish I could always keep a cooked batch in the fridge, but I only harvested about a quart last year, so I’m stingy with them; the rice and beans I made last night (I ate lentils on both New Years Eve and day) were the first time I’ve broke into them — for good luck, and for essay fodder. Cooked with garlic, tomatoes, and a tangle of sauerkraut stirred in at the end — all homegrown — it’s a meal I’d gladly eat far more often than once a year, even if it doesn’t actually make me rich.
Definitely Not Hoppin’ John
The closest thing to Norridgewock beans you can get at the store are probably Yellow Eye Beans — you can even buy Maine-grown ones from State of Maine (which are new-crop and very good). But really any bean will work.
1 cup dry beans
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, sliced Goodfellas style
1 to 2 plum tomatoes, peeled and chopped
Dry oregano
Chile flakes
1/2 cup to 1 cup sauerkraut (or any fresh green of your choice)
To serve:
Cooked long-grain rice
Vinegary hot sauce
Soak the beans in water until they look plump and the skins are no longer wrinkly, a few hours to overnight.
In a heavy pot, cover the soaked beans with water and bring to a boil. Simmer gently over low heat, so as to keep any beans from bursting, until tender. Season with salt and set aside.
Heat the olive oil in a heavy pot (I use the same one I cooked the beans in) and soften the garlic over low heat until fragrant. Add the tomato (I used one of the large plum tomatoes from the garden that I keep stashed in the freezer; run them under hot water and the skins slip right off) and cook over medium heat until the individual pieces break down and everything starts to look saucy. Season with salt, dried oregano, and chile flakes.
Add the cooked beans to the pot along with about a cup of the cooking liquid. Simmer until the sauce thickens and clings to the beans; you don’t want beans and liquid, you want saucy beans. (If the beans start looking too dry, add more of the bean-cooking liquid.) Stir in between a half a cup and a cup of sauerkraut and continue cooking until the cabbage is warmed through. Check the seasoning.
Serve over long-grain rice with vinegary hot sauce, and maybe even a poached or fried egg, if you want it.