I believe that yummy food, southern food, is a great American institution.  

Years later when I went to college, I broke the monotony of general education classes by reading Anne Rice, who, I was thrilled to discover, was from the South and wrote about it with sincerity enough to put me there. One Anne Rice book was ample to inspire me to change my major from Literature to History, and to get a job in the food industry. I don’t consider myself impressionable, rather, just fine-tuned to destiny.

I ended up with an educational emphasis on the antebellum south. I took classes that taught me about Chesapeake, Jamestown, the burning of Atlanta, and different levels of humanity. 

When I had finished Anne Rice’s books and classes were not in session, I went to bookstores and coffee shops, ordered café au laits and read southern cookbooks.

“But why can’t we put hush puppies on the catering menu?” I asked my boss. “No one would order them,” I was told. “Too bad, they don’t know what they’re missing.” I started stocking ham hocks in my refrigerator and grits in the pantry. 

As my grandfather got older, I realized the time I had to ask him about his heritage first-hand, not just what I read in ancestries or textbooks, was slipping away. Unfortunately, so was his memory, and I had to find another way to connect, to pull up my roots, to authenticate my southern-ness.

So I began to make him black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day every year until he died. He never turned them down, even when he couldn’t recognize my children anymore. He recognized something important – the grittiness of a slow-cooked black-eyed pea, the predictability of its skin slipping off, the sandy color of the broth, the sweetness of a sautéed onion, the earthy flavor of a bay leaf, and the piquant kick of Tabasco.

In my refrigerator right now, in preparation for January 1st, are ham hocks waiting to help me prove who I am. I have learned and been burned in years past when on December 31st the store shelves are deplete of black-eyed peas, so my pantry has at least four bags of them.

I just need to cook them still – to honor my Grandfather, to show off my southern cooking mojo, for good luck, because I am superstitious and also for my husband who loves them.

When I am done serving everyone black-eyed peas and raising a separate bowl up skywards (“Here you go, Grandpa!”), I nestle up with a good book about fictitious southern families, or a movie about the south (because tomorrow is another day), and I eat my own black-eyed peas.

It’s how I stay connected.

New Year's Day Black-Eyed Peas 

1 lb. dried black-eyed peas
2 ham hocks
1 onion, diced
8 oz. tomato sauce
1 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
2 bay leaves
Dried thyme
Cayenne pepper to taste
Coarse grain salt and pepper to taste
Tabasco to taste

Day before:

Soak peas overnight. Drain next day prior to cooking.

New Year’s Day:

In a large stockpot, bring at least six cups of water to a boil.

Add the bay leaves, ham hocks and black-eyed peas and reduce to a simmer for half an hour.

In a separate pan, sauté onion in extra virgin olive oil, then add tomato sauce.

Add tomato sauce to the black-eyed peas and turn up heat until boiling.

Add thyme, cayenne, salt and pepper.

Reduce to simmer once again, until the liquid is reduced and black-eyed peas are soft.

Remove ham hocks with slotted spoon.

Add Tabasco to taste.