The Story
If ever we needed some luck in the new year, this is the year! Though I’m not a superstitious person, I’ll take all the help I can get to get 2021 started on the right foot, so I made my take on Hoppin’ John. Hoppin’ John is a famous dish from the South made from pork, rice, and black eyed peas. The dish is traditionally eaten on New Year’s day and is seen as good luck for the rest of the year to come. The good luck story probably originated in Africa, where black eyed peas were often eaten for luck on auspicious occasions. Brought to America by enslaved people, the tradition stuck, though it morphed over time, likely mixing with superstitious European New Year’s practices. The black eyed pea eventually became a lucky food eaten every January 1st. Peas, cornbread, and pork all came to represent wealth, health, and prosperity for the new year. The Gullah culture of the southeast is thought to have invented the actual dish of Hoppin’ John, and though no one is sure of where the name came from, many hypothesize that it is a bastardized form of ‘pois pigeons’. Fried up as leftovers the next day, the dish becomes Skippin’ Jenny. My Hoppin’ John was made with cast iron seared centre-cut pork loin rather than the traditional smoked hock, bacon, or jowl, and the pork was added last minute to maintain its crunchy exterior. The bread was made out of stone ground Southern corn grits and buttermilk, cooked in the oven in my other cast iron pan. It pays to have two! Whether or not this dish gave me luck, it did a great job at soaking up my epic hangover; all the more reason to eat it the day after New Year’s Eve! www.theintrepideater.com