Black Eye Peas

A couple months ago we were strolling around the Berkeley farmers market and I saw something I had never seen before...black eye peas in the shell.

For most people this would be a ho-hum yawning experience but my love for black eye peas borders on the fanatical (it's #1 on my desert island foods list) so the level of excitement was almost off the chart. On New Year's Day we cooked them after I clumsily broke a wine glass nearby and spent 45 minutes rinsing each pea to make sure they weren't contaminated with glass shards...they weren't. The shelling and second rinse were so worth the effort, they were gooooood.

I take Wikipedia entries with a huge grain of salt but the entry on black eyed peas and the tie to eating them on New Years Day for good luck is interesing (it's anyones guess whether it's accurate)...

Eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day is thought to bring prosperity.

The "good luck" traditions of eating black-eyed peas at Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, are recorded in the Babylonian Talmud (compiled ~500 CE), Horayot 12A: "Abaye [d. 339 CE] said, now that you have established that good-luck symbols avail, you should make it a habit to see Qara (bottle gourd), Rubiya (black-eyed peas, Arabic Lubiya), Kartei (leeks), Silka (either beets or spinach), and Tamrei (dates) on your table on the New Year." However, the custom may have resulted from an early mistranslation of the Aramaic word rubiya (fenugreek).

In the United States, the first Sephardi Jews arrived in Georgia in the 1730s, and have lived there continuously since. The Jewish practice was apparently adopted by non-Jews around the time of the American Civil War.

If you're a fan of black eye peas and ever see them in the shell, snatch up as many as you can, it's a purchase you won't regret.

On a related but different note, it just wouldn't be right to wrap-up this post without a tune from you know who...