Hoppin' John

Hoppin' John is the Southern United States' version of the rice and beans dish traditional throughout the Caribbean. It consists of field peas or crowder peas (black-eyed peas) and rice, with chopped onion and sliced bacon, seasoned with a bit of salt. [http://whatscookingamerica.net/History/HoppinJohn.htm]

Some people substitute ham hock or fatback for the conventional bacon; a few use green peppers or vinegar and spices.

Smaller than black-eyed peas, field peas are used in the Low Country of South Carolina and Georgia; black-eyed peas are the norm elsewhere. Throughout the coastal South, eating Hoppin' John on New Year's Day is thought to bring a year filled with luck, and it's eaten by everyone. [http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Hoppin-John/Detail.aspx] The peas, or beans with little black “eyes,” signify coins. Fill your plate with them and your cup will run over, as in the 23rd Psalm, perhaps. Collard greens along with this dish are supposed to also add to the wealth since they are the color of money. On the day after New Year's Day, leftover "Hoppin' John" is called "Skippin' Jenny," and further demonstrates one's frugality, bringing an even better chance of prosperity in the New Year, it is hoped. ["Skippin' Jenny" is transgenerational verbal history from the South Carolina Low Country; no known published reference.]

Variants

Many regional variants exist, including "Hoppin' Juan," which substitutes Cuban black beans for black-eyed peas, and the Brazilian dish Feijoada (fay-shwaa-da), which uses black turtle beans instead of black-eyed peas.

Etymology

Variations of this dish are seen throughout the American South and the Caribbean, and the dish is believed to have been typical slave food in early colonial times. The origins of the name are uncertain, one possibility is that the name is a corruption of the French Creole term for black-eyed peas: pois pigeons (IPA2|pwapiˈʒɔ̃).

Another explanation has it that a Georgia land owner's one-legged slave, John, hopped around the table as he served a meal of rice and black-eyed peas. The meal was so well liked that it was named after him.

The OED's first reference to the dish is from Frederick Law Olmsted's 19th Century travelogue, "A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States". "The greatest luxury with which they are acquainted is a stew of bacon and peas, with red pepper, which they call ‘Hopping John’." There is also a recipe for Hopping John in "The Carolina Housewife" by Sarah Rutledge, which was published in 1847.

See also

* Gallo Pinto - the equivalent dish of Nicaragua and Costa Rica
* Pabellón criollo - the equivalent in Venezuela
* Platillo Moros y Cristianos - the Cuban equivalent

References

External links

* [http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/104452 Recipe at epicurious.com]
* [http://members.aol.com/RSRICHMOND/hoppingjohn.html Robert Richmond's Hopping John page]