Had My Traditional Black-Eyed Peas Today To Start The New Year
It’s a Southern thing, guys & gals. It’s said they bring luck. In the War Of Northern Aggression, Sherman’s troops burned and pillaged everything that they could which they thought would sustain the Southern population. They overlooked field peas because they thought they were only good to feed the livestock which the Northerners had stolen and eaten or killed anyway. They had no idea that field peas, black-eyes, and such are damned good eating and a true delicacy as it turns out. The dish sustained many a Southern soul.
Unfortunately for me, I have long since eaten all the good fresh frozen black-eyed and purple hull peas I had put up in my freezer and have been unable to find a suitable source here in San Antonio, so we are relegated to sourcing ours from either the big, fat tasteless California-grown things in the refrigerated section of the grocery store or the things similarly labeled such from their freezer section. Pale imitations of the real thing, so maybe a little luck will be derived from the little flavor. Such is life in the big city...
Incidentally, the worst thing about black-eyed peas today may just be the detestable band that borrowed the name and despoiled it!
