There are many folk food traditions around the world that promise good luck for the New Year, and one that is practiced here in the New World, with roots in Africa, is serving some type of bean-and-rice dish on New Year’s Day.
The best-known dish using black-eyed peas here in the States is Hoppin’ John, which is Southern; however, many black families in the North also serve up black-eyed pea dishes, usually poured over or mixed with rice.
Stewing Black-Eyed Peas for New Year’s Luck
That first big meal of the new year, with a pot of black-eyed peas at its center, is deeply entwined with African-American culture.
“Eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day has been done by black Americans to ensure good luck in the incoming year,” said Jessica B. Harris, the food historian, who fondly recalled attending the lively New Year’s Day party Maya Angelou held at her home in Harlem, where the peas were served. “This tradition carries over from the black American community into the general Southern community in many places, and persists in the North as well as a result of the Great Migration.”
Black-eyed peas
The first domestication probably occurred in West Africa, but the black-eyed pea is widely grown in many countries in Asia; it was introduced into the Southern United States as early as the 17th century in Virginia. Most of the black-eyed pea cultivation in the region, however, took firmer hold in Florida and the Carolinas during the 18th century, reaching Virginia in full force following the American Revolution. The crop would also eventually prove popular in Texas. Throughout the South, the black-eyed pea is still a widely used ingredient in soul food and cuisines of the Southern United States. The planting of crops of black-eyed peas was promoted by George Washington Carver because, as a legume, it adds nitrogen to the soil and has high nutritional value.
Learn how to make Hoppin’ John – a classic Gullah dish – with Chef BJ Dennis of Charleston, South Carolina.
In Jamaica rice and peas are often on the menu.
In Puerto Rico pigeon peas (gandules) and rice make up arroz con gandules. It’s a traditional Christmas dish that makes an encore for New Year's.
Noted culinary historian and author Jessica B. Harris writes:
Prosperity Starts With a Pea
At year’s end, people around the world indulge in food rituals to ensure good luck in the days ahead. In Spain, grapes eaten as the clock turns midnight — one for each chime — foretell whether the year will be sweet or sour. In Austria, the New Year’s table is decorated with marzipan pigs to celebrate wealth, progress and prosperity. Germans savor carp and place a few fish scales in their wallets for luck. And for African-Americans and in the Southern United States, it’s all about black-eyed peas.
Not surprisingly, this American tradition originated elsewhere, in this case in the forests and savannahs of West Africa. After being domesticated there 5,000 years ago, black-eyed peas made their way into the diets of people in virtually all parts of that continent. They then traveled to the Americas in the holds of slave ships as food for the enslaved. “Everywhere African slaves arrived in substantial numbers, cowpeas followed,” wrote one historian, using one of several names the legume acquired. Today the peas are also eaten in Brazil, Central America and the Caribbean.
Like many other dishes of African inspiration, black-eyed peas made their way from the slave cabin to the master’s table; the 1824 edition of “The Virginia Housewife” by Mary Randolph includes a recipe for field peas. Randolph suggests shelling, boiling and draining the “young and newly gathered” peas, then mashing them into a cake and frying until lightly browned. The black-eyed pea cakes are served with a garnish of “thin bits of fried bacon.”
Of course, black-eyed peas find their most prominent expression around New Year’s in the holiday’s signature dish: Hoppin’ John, a Carolina specialty made with black-eyed peas and rice and seasoned with smoked pork. Again, though, the peas and rice combination reaches back beyond the Lowcountry to West Africa, where variants are eaten to this day. Senegal alone has three variations: thiebou kethiah, a black-eyed pea and rice stew with eggplant, pumpkin, okra and smoked fish; sinan kussak, a stew with smoked fish and prepared with red palm oil; and thiebou niebe, a stew seasoned with fish sauce that is closest to America’s Hoppin’ John.
If you are not familiar with her work, my favorite is her culinary history High on the Hog.
Acclaimed cookbook author Jessica B. Harris weaves an utterly engaging history of African American cuisine, taking the reader on a harrowing journey from Africa across the Atlantic to America, and tracking the trials that the people and the food have undergone along the way. From chitlins and ham hocks to fried chicken and vegan soul, Harris celebrates the delicious and restorative foods of the African American experience and details how each came to form an important part of African American culture, history, and identity. Although the story of African cuisine in America begins with slavery, High on the Hog ultimately chronicles a thrilling history of triumph and survival. The work of a masterful storyteller and an acclaimed scholar, Jessica B. Harris's High on the Hog fills an important gap in our culinary history.
Fritters made from black-eyed peas are a religious offering in Brazil all year round, as well as a street food.
Acarajé
Acarajé is made with cooked and mashed black eyed peas seasoned with salt and chopped onions molded into the shape of a large scone and deep-fried in palm oil in a wok-like pan in front of the customers. It is served split in half and stuffed with vatapá and caruru – spicy pastes made from shrimp, ground cashews, palm oil and other ingredients.
Anthony Bourdain’s site, Parts Unknown, ran a wonderful piece on acarajé this March.
Staying faithful to acarajé
The Portuguese first arrived in what is now known as Brazil in 1500, bringing with them their own rich and diverse culinary canon. In the 1500’s, the colonial power began bringing African slaves to Brazil’s shores.The subsequent fusion of cooking styles and tastes of Africa with Portuguese and indigenous food cultures became the foundation of what we know today as Brazilian cuisine. Acarajé is a culinary embodiment of this process: a black-eyed-pea-and-shrimp fritter, light in texture and bold in flavor. The dendê (red palm oil), in which it is deep-fried, and the vatapá (seafood stew with coconut milk) that serve as a base for the delicacy make acarajé a symbol of the distinctive richness of Bahia’s food culture.
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Adherents of Candomblé worship Orishas, African deities treated similarly to Catholic saints, each with a distinct name and favorite food. In Candomblé, the recipe for acarajé that Afonja and others sell was created as an offering to Iansã, the goddess of the winds and storms. But as Bahians have, along with the greater Brazilian population, become more evangelical in recent years (based on the 2010 census, more than 2 out of 10 Brazilians are currently evangelicals), some street sellers have become reluctant to wear the traditional garb, saying that to do so would be against their religious beliefs.
Attempts to distance the dish from Candomblé peaked recently when a group of evangelical Bahians attempted to rename acarajé “Jesus’ fritter.” Members of the Candomblé community objected and obtained an injunction forbidding the sale of the delicacy under that name. “Everybody knows that acarajé is the votive food of Iansã. It’s not Jesus’ fritter,” says Afonja. “Our food is one of the major symbols of our Afro-descendant culture. The ingredients, the clothes, and the name are related to that. Not respecting this is not respecting our roots,” she continues.
Deep-friend mushed black-eyed peas with dried shrimp and onions, that's Acarajé!
If you don’t think beans will bring you good luck or blessings, no matter: You’ll still have a great meal.
Happy New Year!