My mom always cooked a New Year's Day dinner of pork, cabbage, and potatoes with certain foods signifying health, wealth, and wisdom in the new year. Pork was said to represent moving forward to the year ahead because pigs can't turn their head from side to side. And, some traditions include putting a dime in that bowl of cabbage. It was said that the person who scooped out the dime with their cabbage would be prosperous in the coming new year.
It is difficult to track down the origins of superstitions, but many old traditions seem to blend together over the years to form a general concept of how history influences modern customs. In the case of New Year's dinner, an old, traditional dish presents an interesting view into lingering conventions.
Down South – Hoppin' John
In the Southern United States, Hoppin’ John is standard New Year’s fare. A simple, dish of peas, pork and rice has graced holiday tables since the 1800s. It’s believed to bring luck and peace in the coming year to anyone who eats it.
The origins of the name “Hoppin’ John” are slightly less clear. Some say an old, hobbled man called “Hoppin’ John” became known for selling peas and rice on the streets of Charleston. Others say slave children hopped around the table in eager anticipation of the dish. Most food historians think the name derives from a French term for dried peas, “pois pigeons” meaning “pigeon peas.”
Karen Hess in The Carolina Rice Kitchen said …
"Most of the proposed origins are demeaning to African-Americans, representing pop etymology of a low order."
According to Charleston, SC–based food writer and the author Robert Moss …
“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. “The Historic Problem With Hoppin' John.” Serious Eats. December 24, 2014.)
For what it's worth, though, numerous accounts of from the early 20th century note that when Charlestonians said "Hoppin' John," they put the emphasis on the second word – Hoppin' John. History records the French pronounced the food "paw-peejohn," which may have sounded like "hoppin' John" to English speakers.
According to The New York Times, the first known time that the “Hoppin’ John” name appeared in print was in the novel Recollections of a Southern Matron by Carolyn Howard Gilman in 1838. After both parents died, Caroline went to live with relatives in various towns across Massachusetts. She married Reverend Samuel Gilman in 1819, and the newlyweds moved to Charleston, South Carolina, where Mr. Gilman had accepted the pastorate of the Unitarian Church. In 1832,
(Lesley Kennedy. “9 Lucky New Year’s Food Traditions.” History. December 21, 2020.)
The first recipes for Hoppin’ John appear in cookbooks in the 1840s although the mixture of dried peas, rice and pork was made by enslaved people in the South long before then. It seems to have originated in the Low Country of South Carolina, an area where plantation owners searched long and hard for a crop that would flourish in the hot, muggy weather. Rice grew well in the river deltas, so it was a natural choice, but the white farmers had no real experience with cultivating rice on a large scale. Enter the slave trade and enslaved West Africans who had grown rice for generations.
It's uncertain why the dish became associated with New Year’s and good luck. The most likely story is that enslaved people would often have the period between Christmas and New Year’s off, since no crops were growing at that time. Some correlate the black-eyed peas shape to coins (other traditions include eating 12 peas on New Year’s – one for each month).
Hoppin’ John was, and still is, often eaten with collard greens, which can resemble paper money, and “golden” cornbread. The peas themselves represent coins. Some families boost the potential of their Hoppin’ John by placing a penny underneath the dishes – or adding extra pork, which is thought to bring more luck.
(Stephanie Butler. “Hoppin’ John: A New Year’s Tradition.” History. December 28, 2012.)
In classic Carolina “pilaus,” chicken or shrimp were often cooked in the pot along with the rice. When the broth was flavored with bacon and peas or beans incorporated, it became the dish known as Hoppin' John.
That technique of cooking rice and beans together was African in origin, and it spread to every part of the Americas that had a significant African presence. Each location developed its own distinctive rice and bean dishes—the Moros y Cristianos of Cuba (made with black beans), the Pois et Riz Collé of Louisiana (made with red beans), and the Hoppin' John of the South Carolina Low Country.
The original ingredients of Hoppin' John are simple: one pound of bacon, one pint of peas, and one pint of rice. It's important to note that everything was cooked together in the same pot:
“First put on the peas, and when half boiled, add the bacon. When the peas are well boiled, throw in the rice, which must first be washed and gravelled. When the rice has been boiling half an hour, take the pot off the fire and put it on coals to steam, as in boiling rice alone.”
“The last instruction reflects the traditional Carolina way of making rice, isn't quite like most people make it today. Rather than cooking it 20 minutes until all the water was absorbed, cooks boiled it in a large amount of salted water until the grains had become swollen. Then the excess water was drained off and the pot was left on the ashes to allow to "soak"—that is, to essentially steam over low heat till each of the snowy white grains stood dry and perfectly separate and distinct.”
(Robert Moss. “The Historic Problem With Hoppin' John.” Serious Eats. December 24, 2014.)
Early Hoppin' John recipes call not for black-eyed peas but "red peas" or "cow peas." Robert Moss reports: “In 1895, visitors from all over the country sampled Hopping John at the Atlanta Exposition.” An article in the Cleveland Leader captured a northern housekeeper's reaction to it. "I tried to make the dish once . . . and it was squishy and messy and unlovely to look upon. Then I ate the Southern one. It was delightful. The grains of rice and the peas stood apart, yet together, as it were, the purplish peas colored the rice to their own hue, and the whole was seasoned satisfactorily with savory bacon." That purplish hue is a hallmark of Hoppin' John made with old-fashioned peas.
By the turn of the 20th century, Hoppin' John was one of the featured stars of the Charleston table. When President William Howard Taft visited the city in November 1909, he was treated to a dinner of rice pilau, okra soup, and Hoppin' John.
And, how about the rice?
The long-grained white rice available in grocery stores did not taste or handle like the rich, nutty golden rice for which the famous Lowcountry pilaus, bogs, perloo’, and rice gruels were created.
Robert Moss said …
“In 1986, Richard Schulze, a Savannah ophthalmologist, planted a crop of Carolina Gold rice at his Turnbridge Plantation using seeds propagated from a few grains of Carolina Gold that had been held in a USDA seed bank since 1927. Two years later, he harvested a ten thousand pound crop, and through the efforts of the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation, a small group of rice farmers now produce a sufficient supply to sell to restaurant chefs and home cooks interested in trying their hand at classic recipes.
“Glenn Roberts of Anson Mills sells Carolina Gold rice online, and he has worked with farmers in the Lowcountry to cultivate heirloom beans and peas, too, including Sea Island Red Peas. A few smokehouse operators like Benton's in Madisonville, Tennessee, and Edwards of Surry, Virginia, were still practicing their craft quietly out in the countryside, and their rich, deeply-smoky products have been rediscovered by chefs and home cooks alike.”
(Robert Moss. “The Historic Problem With Hoppin' John.” Serious Eats. December 24, 2014.)
The Carolina Gold Rice Foundation is made up of a handful of people who genuinely care about the cultivation of heritage grains and who cherish the traditional dinner rites and country foodways of the region.
And, about those "peas" ...
Cowpeas are not botanical peas at all but a type of bean, a low legume that was fed to cattle and slaves in eighteenth-century America and named for the more valued animal. Brought to the West Indies from Africa, cowpeas crept north to Georgia in the 1730s and multiplied so rapidly that they became both the common “field pea,” as they are often called, and the decorative “black-eyed pea” that Jefferson planted at Monticello. Creoles called the peas “congrí,” echoing Congo Square. And when they mixed the peas with rice and threw in pickled pork, they called the dish “jambalaya au congrí.”
Ebony’s first Food and Fashion editor, Freda DeKnight, included a Hopping John recipe in her 1948 cookbook. In fact, A Date with a Dish includes three recipes for the cowpea variety described in the Food Lover’s Companion by Sharon Tyler Herbst, as a “small beige bean with a black circular ‘eye’ at its inner curve.”
Tomato puree, bell pepper, onion, garlic and different cuts of pork such as pig's knuckle or ham hock are included in variations of the recipe. Anyone interested in cooking Hoppin' John can look to the Internet where many recipes exist.
But, be mindful. If you want your Hoppin' John to be delicious and authentic, Robert Moss says get yourself some Sea Island Red Peas, Carolina Gold rice, and some good old-fashioned smoky bacon. Cook them together in the same pot until the grains of rice and the peas stand separate and apart, the rice dyed a purplish-red hue from the peas.
Moss concludes: “I can't guarantee it will bring you more money in 2015, but you'll certainly enjoy true riches on your plate.”
(Robert Moss. “The Historic Problem With Hoppin' John.” Serious Eats. December 24, 2014.)
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