Carolina Hoppin’ John Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is a Charleston Hoppin John? ›

A staple of the Southern table, Hoppin' John is famously eaten on New Year's Day, but is just as good any other day as well. This version features tender and earthy field peas cooked with fluffy rice and rich and smoky ham hocks.

Hoppin' John, also known as Carolina peas and rice, is a peas and rice dish served in the Southern United States. It is made with cowpeas, mainly, black-eyed peas and Sea Island red peas in the Sea Islands and iron and clay peas in the Southeast US, and rice, chopped onion, and sliced bacon, seasoned with salt.

What's the difference between Hoppin' John and black-eyed peas? Hoppin' John has black-eyed peas in it, but it also has other ingredients. In this recipe, the black-eyed peas are stewed with onion, garlic, celery, and a ham hock, similar to how some Southern-style black-eyed peas would be cooked.

A highlight on the culinary map of the Palmetto State is Hoppin' John. Derived from the Gullah culture, this dish is as legendary as it is savory. Locally sourced ingredients, flavorful seasonings and spices and a certain level of flare are all part of what makes this a classic Southern dish.

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.”

The African roots of the dish can be traced to the antebellum rice culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry, where peas and rice have been cooked together for centuries. Tradition dictates that a side of collard greens representing paper money be served with Hoppin' John to ensure prosperity in the coming year.

At its core, however, Hoppin' John is rice, black-eyed peas (or field peas), smoked pork, and onions. Black-eyed peas are supposed to bring you luck if you eat them on New Year's Day, and it is traditionally eaten with collard greens.

The Best Beans for Classic Hoppin' John

While black-eyed peas are now commonly used in most Hoppin' John recipes, that has not always been the case. Earlier recipes dating back to the 1800s called for cowpeas, red peas, or field peas.

Hoppin' John is traditionally served with collard greens, whose green color symbolizes wealth. The black-eyed peas are symbolic of coins (more good fortune), and an actual coin is sometimes added to the pot. This is where eating black-eyed peas on New Year's came from.

The crop was brought by enslaved Africans in the 1600s as they were transported to the Americas. West Africans have long considered black-eyed peas a good luck charm that warded off evil spirits, and they are often served on holidays and birthdays.

What are black-eyed peas called in Africa? ›

Called niébé in parts of the Sahel, the black-eyed peas are dubbed “miracle peas,” or “poor man's meat” in most of sub-Saharan Africa because of their high nutritive value and their ability to grow in harsh conditions.

The southern pea, Vigna unguiculata, has its own lexicon of names. Yankees call it the cowpea, a name never heard south of the lilac–crape myrtle line. Southerners also know it as the black-eyed-pea, the pink eye pea, the purple hull pea, the cream pea or the crowder.

And our tastiest superstitious tradition is eating Hoppin' John on New Year's Day. This classic Southern dish, a one-pot meal of black-eyed peas, ham hock, and rice, is believed by many (not just the Sterlings) to ensure wealth and bring good luck in the upcoming year.

Since then, descendants of these communities have named this African diaspora the Gullah Geechee Nation, showing genetic admixtures from Central West Africa, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Bights of Benin & Biafra. The Gullah Geechee culture is marked by its unique language and living styles.

The Gullah Geechee people are the descendants of West and Central Africans who were enslaved and bought to the lower Atlantic states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia to work on the coastal rice, Sea Island cotton and indigo plantations.

Hoppin' John is a Southern dish made with black-eyed peas, rice, and pork (usually bacon, but sometimes ham hock). It usually features an onion and other seasonings for flavor. Hoppin' John can be eaten throughout the year, but it's especially common on New Year's Day.

During the harsh winter, the Confederate soldiers survived on the remaining black-eyed peas, promoting this humble and nourishing legume into a symbol of fortune and prosperity in the American South.