Black-eyed Peas, Collard Greens and Cornbread

Black-eyed peas, collard greens, cornbread, hawg jowl, and hawg tail sounds like granny’s menu for Uncle Jed, Jethro, and Ellie Mae on The Beverly Hillbillies. In reality is was the smell of New Year’s Day dinner by the Hopper family. It is a family tradition of the South. Grannie Hopper and Grandmoe Chapman were connoisseurs of Southern cuisine.

The black-eyed peas ensured that families would have plenty of coins. Collards meant folding money and cornbread meant gold. Some folks call it “Soul Food.” Well, as a history major it is “Poor Irish Food.” In Alabama, home to many Scot-Isish immigrants, Native Americans (Indians) taught Scot Irish how to cook indigenous vegetation such as cornbread and greens. Greens could be dandelions, pokeweed, or wild lettuce.

My University of Montevallo history professor read an early journal written by Irish that settled in Alabama. The journal described a family meal. When he read it most students said it sounded like soul food. Dr. Fuller said it was Irish. Africans were hunter-gathers, and the Indians taught the Irish which taught the Blacks how cook. Bottom line it is the poor people’s meal. Poor is not a respecter of color.

Granny Hopper was a sharecropping widow raising nine children during the Great Depression. Daddy said that when they killed a “hawg” they only thing they threw away was the squeal. They ate all the meat, used the hair for mattress stuffing, and bones for fertilizer. I have helped Granny “sling” the guts (chitterlings) when we killed hogs.

Grandmoe Chapman was faithful to cook black eyed peas, turnip greens, and cornbread. During the Great Depression, mamma said Grandmoe cooked racoon and opossum. It was special when the had hawg jowl to flavor the peas and greens. Grandmoe’s specialty was hawg head cheese. When we killed hogs, she wanted the hog’s head to make it. I never ate it on New Year’s Day or any other time. I didn’t eat chitterlings either.

Yankees had black-eyed peas to feed livestock. Southern soldiers cooked them to survive. Peas eaten with Johnnie or hoecake (cornbread) was a staple during the War of Northern Aggression. After the War of Northern Aggression, poverty-stricken Southerners ate the peas, greens, and cornbread as a sigh of resilience and hope.

After decades of eating black-eyed peas, I never saw many coins even though daddy received “pennies” from unemployment several Christmas’s and New Years. Collars, turnip greens, and mustard were delicious with homemade pepper sauce and pone crackling cornbread, but we never saw much folding money and no gold. We always had hope.

As 2025 draws to a close, let us have hope and share it. God blesses the United States, and we take if for granted. We waste so much in a world that needs so much. Lisa will prepare black-eyed peas, turnip greens, and cornbread laced with bacon grease for New’s Year Day. I’d rather grill some hawg. My reasoning is that pigs eat peas, turnip greens, and cornbread and by me eating pig I will have them converted into chops, ribs, or tenderloin.

For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always. Mark 14:7 KJV

“Give Thanks” is one of my favorite songs. It has the line which says, “let the weak say, “I am strong” Let the poor say, “I am rich” rooted Joel 3:10 KJV

 “Let the poor say I am rich” shows the importance of gratitude and perspective. It reminds that true wealth is not just measured by material possessions but by our relationship with God and our attitude towards life.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11 KJV

As 2025 shifts to 2026 and we make all the adjustments for a new beginning hope and resilience will help us face the uncertainties of life. With Jesus we have new beginnings, hope, and help.

Happy New Year tell a friend if you enjoy the blog.

                                                                

 

 

To The Entitled

I will never forget the first time I realized that a turkey sacrificed his life for me to have turkey and dressing.  I remember the episode well.  Smoke swirled in the fall air and coolness surrounded you like a cold cloth wrapped around your head when running a fever. 

We were playing near the fig trees and the ash dump at Grandpaw and Grandmoe’s underneath an overcast sky.  Grandpaw and daddy busied themselves sharpening an axe after splittin’ kinlin’ for a fire burning around the wash pot.  They were boiling water in anticipation of scaldin’ a turkey.  My cousins and I were very familiar with scalding hogs, but the turkey scaldin’ was a first.

It seems as though Grandpaw had raised a few turkeys.  At one time people raised turkeys just as they did chickens.  Turkeys are ugly fowls.  It is hard to believe that some of our founding fathers wanted the turkey to be our national bird instead of the eagle.  Can you imagine what kind of respect the United States would have received had the turkey been on our national bird? 

You do realize that there would have been no turkey and dressing had the turkey been our symbol of power and strength.  Heck, most of the male citizens of Alabama would never have passed through the rite of passage into manhood by going turkey hunting.  There would be no beards displayed on walls of many homes, no turkey feet would proudly exhibited in the den, nor would there be any tail feathers proudly flaunted in the living room where tall tales of calling a gobbler would be shared.

The industry of producing, marketing, and using a turkey caller would not exist if the turkey had been our national bird.  I cannot imagine what are forefathers were thinking when they even suggested the turkey as a national emblem of strength and power.

As I reflect on that morning at Grandpaw’s, I wonder if Grandmoe would had Grandpaw and daddy “ringin’ chickin necks” instead of “choppin’ oft” turkey heads.  When I think about what momma said on many occasions, Grandpaw and Grandmoe might have had possum instead. 

Momma said they ate possum on several occasions.  She said they would “catch em”, “cage em,” and “clean em” out by feeding them “Irish and sweet tater peelin’s.”  For those that don’t know it, possums are scavengers that do not know how to get out of the road when a vehicle approaches. 

Daddy used to make fun of momma saying that before he married her the only thing momma had eaten was chickens and possums.  Daddy did not have it much better.  He ate chitterlings, mountain oysters, and pig feet with pickled collard greens.  I bet some of you are getting hungry and cannot want for the Thanksgiving dinner. 

I guess knowing all these things helped my family to appreciate Thanksgiving dinners.  Gathering around momma’s table was a feast fit for kings.  There was joy around the table.  Usually daddy got a turkey from his work and we grew corn, peas, butter beans, okra, sweet potatoes, pigs, chickens, and such which momma would transform into some of the finest meals.  We were thankful.  Looking back, I realize we were not a thankful then as I am now. 

I look back at that special moment in time as Grandpaw and daddy were about to kill “Ole Tom” and think how things have changed and how we as a nation have digressed from “thank full” to “thank less.”  Sometimes I think that I would enjoy being that small boy witnessing the first time a turkey gave his all for us to eat.  Reminiscing about a simpler time creates a longing to share special times today.  The Lord may be reminding me, and maybe you, that we grow in times of adversity, times of economical downturns, and times of hurting.

At thanksgiving dinner, momma would remind us that God loved us so much and we needed to thank Him for we had so much and many people did not.  We were poor, but we had neighbors who had less than we did.  I realize this is truer today than years ago when momma said it.

So will I compass thine altar, O Lord:  That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous works (Psalm 26:6b-7 KJV).