Hoppin' John

"You can dig up old 19th century "receipts" (as they were called back then), follow them to the letter, and still end up mystified that anyone could ever have loved such stuff, much less decided it was an iconic Southern dish." Robert Moss/Serious Eats

I owe this post to a substack newsletter from Gastra Obscura yesterday, which highlighted it because is it is an American - well the Southern states of the Carolinas and neighbours - New Year's Day dish. So I thought that before we all forget that we are now in a New Year I would look at one idiosyncratic New Year tradition from the weird world of the USA.

I'm generally not a fan of the USA in spite of the beauty of the landscape, its amazing genius in matters of science, technology and engineering, not to mention business I suppose. Plus their sometimes overwhelming hospitality, but there's always something marginally creepy going on underneath it seems to me and at the moment America is downright worrying.

I have now been 'researching' this particular folksy sounding dish. for a while and it's been interesting as the history and tradition of food so often is. In a number of different ways.

Let's start with that very folksy name. Nobody really knows where it comes from but here are the main theories:

• There was a crippled food vendor who went by the name of Hoppin' John selling the dish on the streets of Charleston.

• There was also a waiter with that name - a variation on the one above

• It's an abbreviation of the phrase 'Hop in John' - an invitation to someone to come in and eat in the south

• Children hop around the table before sitting down to eat this dish

• It's "a paraphrased Gullah version of the French words for pigeon peas, 'pois à pigeons', pronounced “pwa-peejohn.” Some go so far as to say that this is the most accepted these days, though to me it sounds like the least likely - I mean whilst the last part of the word pigeon might sound like John the rest of it sounds nothing like 'hoppin'. The Gulla are a particular creole group descendend from the African slaves who went to the lowlands of Carolina.

Robert Moss on the Serious Eats website is also not impressed:

As for the origin of the dish's name, I can't put it any better than Karen Hess did in The Carolina Rice Kitchen: "Most of the proposed origins are demeaning to African-Americans, representing pop etymology of a low order." Some of these proposed origins, I would add, are demeaning to human intelligence in general, like the notion that it comes from "Hop in, John," supposedly an obscure South Carolina way of inviting a guest to come eat. It's obscure because nobody in South Carolina actually says that. (Such explanations belong to the school of food etymology that the Oxford English Dictionary has termed "an absurd conjecture suggested merely by the sound of the word" and I like to call "just making shit up.")" Robert Moss/Serious Eats

Then there are all the traditions that revolve around the dish. Most importantly that it brings good luck for the year ahead - particularly financially because the peas (i.e. beans) represent coins and the greens represent notes and the corn bread that it is often served with represents gold. But it also is good luck for romance, and very definitely a year of bad luck looms if you don't eat it on New Year's Day. Also:

"Some folks put a shiny new dime in the pot while cooking. Whoever finds the coin in his bowl will get an extra dose of good fortune. Another tradition calls for each person to leave three peas on the plate after finishing, with one each to represent luck, wealth, and romance." Charleston Magazine

Or:

"One tradition has you count the peas in your serving. Ideally, you’ll get one pea for every day of the year." Past the Plate

All fun stuff but all made up. Nobody had suggestions as to how they originated. Although perhaps the emphasis on the hope for prosperity comes from the fact that this is a slave dish - specifically slaves brought to the Carolina low country - a swampy land - from the Western and central parts of Africa. With them they brought a specific kind of bean of the cowfield pea type, and a type of rice, that came to be known as Carolina Gold - not just for its golden colour of the unhulled grain, but also for the fortune that it made for the landowners of Carolina, before storms and time destroyed the fields.

These two ingredients formed that basis of the dish that became known as Hoppin' John with the addition of salted pork from heritage breeds whose meat was much darker - almost purple some say - than the pork we see today, and collard greens which I think we in Britain called spring greens, and which you don't seem to be able to get here.

And with those ingredients the slaves also brought the dishes they made with them:

"The dish traces its origins back to the slave trade, which also brought over West African foods like black-eyed peas during the late 17th century. Enslaved West African referred to the dish as thiebou niebe or dab-a-dab, which contained rice and beans along with vegetables, meat, and peppers, a precursor to the modern Hoppin' John." The Daily Meal

I did not mention the black-eyed beans that seem to be the most used bean used today, because originally and still today in some areas - it was the brown cow or field pea that was used.

After the Civil War the California Gold rice virtually disappeared - partly due to environmental factors, but mostly because of increased competition and no slave labour. Some even thought it was extinct, but it was rediscovered in California in the 1950's and is now a highly desired gourmet product. Which brings us to the ironic situation where a dish that was created by the poorest of the poor from whatever they could grow themselves - if made 'authentically' today - heritage pork, California Gold rice would be rather expensive. The beans and collards are cheap though:

"On the day after New Year's Day, leftover "Hoppin' John" is called "Skippin' Jenny" and further demonstrates one's frugality, bringing a hope for an even better chance of prosperity in the New Year." Wikipedia

So what is it anyway? How do you cook it? Well of course nobody agrees on that - neither on the ingredients or the method. For example some people cook the rice separate from the beans and bacon or ham and just serve the beans on the rice. The greens also are often served separately - or not at all as in this so-called Classic Hoppin' John from Southern Living - surely an authoratative source.

There are arguments about the beans - black-eyed or brown cow peas. The black-eyed peas seem to have won out but that's probably down to availability and:

"other adaptations, in which people make the classic dish their own way to fit their lifestyle." Amethyst Ganaway/Serious Eats

That lady however, whose version of Hoppin' John and about which she is vehement with respect to its authenticity seems to contain no greens at all.

And perhaps the greatest argument is to whether this is a one pot dish whereby the pork constituent, whether it be bacon, a ham hock, some pork - smoked, salted or not - or maybe even sausage, the rice and the greens are all cooked together or something for which each ingredient is cooked separately and combined on the plate at serving time.

I think I go with Amethyst Ganaway on the one pot theory:

"Not only had I never had the dish made with the black-eyed peas many use, but I’d never had it not made with the rice, meat, and peas all cooked together. Plain boiled rice with peas on top was just...rice with peas on top, and mixing them in together after the fact just seemed like it defeated the purpose of making them separately." Amethyst Ganaway/Serious Eats

And yet she doesn't include greens which I'm sure would add something to the taste - amd the health. The trick I suppose is getting all of the ingredients at the right state of being cooked at the same time and with the right consistency. The slaves would leave the dish to stand, covered, for a while, so that the rice became fluffy and separate from the peas, rather than a mush.

My favourite American cook, the late Bert Greene avoids the issue by making Hoppin' John soup - one of the few of his recipes that you can find online - and no greens - although a fan - The Recipe Blogger - whose picture this is - added in some kale. He seemed to think that Bert Greene himself had added some collards, but neither the actual Bert Greene recipe online, or the one in my book Grains Cookbook does.

It's a plain dish - one that the Caribbean, Latin America and the southern states of the United States owe to the Africans that they all enslaved in those dark times. It seems to me as I travel around that area in my 'every now and then' around the world cuisines series - that every country there has a version of rice and beans. And now that I think of it I somehow do not associate Africa with rice - or beans come to that. Which is almost certainly due to complete ignorance.

As my opening quote from Robert Moss says you can "end up mystified that anyone could ever have loved such stuff" which leads him to say later in his piece:

"Not surprisingly, 20th century recipes started adding in other stuff to augment the flavor of the rice and beans"

Well yes - chilli in one form or another seems to be a common extra, as do capsicum. Meera Sodha has a rather good looking Vegan Hoppin' John but I didn't really go looking for variations. Of course the rest of the world is into beans and rice as well, so no matter where you are you will find a dish with the same idea - just different flavourings. Well now that I think about it Hoppin' John doesn't have any additional flavourings - just beans, rice, and meat.

A base on which to build as you fancy. And if you succeed you can hop around in delight even if your name is not John.

THE FRIDGE SITUATION

Yesterday I rather feel I took two steps forward and the same number back. I did use up some pastichieri - those big pasta tubes - which was satisfying, and did use the last of the ricotta, and the other half of the smoked trout, with some other things for the filling - oh yes and that leftover stock. However I made too much and so now I have the finished dish leftovers sitting in the fridge waiting for someone to eat them up. I hope David but I suspect he didn't really like them and will just have a croissant and ham sandwich whilst I fast today. He also wouldn't eat half of the strawberry fool that I made with the last of the strawberries and the last of the cream, so that's also sitting in the fridge. So the overall fridge situation is the same alas.

YEARS GONE BY

January 5

2025 - Quesadillas

2024 - Nothing

2023 - Healthy?

2022 - Two for the op shop?

2021 - Missing

2020 - Diets, social media, food prejudices - an article

2019 - French leftover ham

2018 - Extra protein - do you need it?

2017 - Pickled onions