Traditions/customs in Texas (black-eyed peas) (Dallas, Howe: houses, promotional, movies)

[TexasReb]

Ok, y'all. Here it is, as TexasorBust first asked about, and I promised to reply, as to some of the details about the origns of this delicious Texas and Southern custom! Sorry for the delay.

Ready? *grins a bit, in good congenial humor*

The most common and accepted story behind why black-eyed peas are a custom in the South on New Years Day traces to the late days of the War Between the States, when the yankee army was on the rampage in Georgia. Sherman's army had orders to "make Georgia howl" by living off the land. Which translated into carrying off anything they needed and destroying the rest. This meant taking their hogs, cattle, chickens, and diggin up plots of land growing vegetables. BUT...one of the things that, according to this tale (which, I might add, I will always be commited to, true or not! *smiles*) left alone by the plunder and pillage, was a type of "legume" which grew wild in the South, and thought. previously, useless for anything but "cow feed" This was the black-eyed pea

With little or nothing left to eat otherwise, devastated Southern women, left with no alternative, tried those black-eyed peas and found them actually quite fit for human consumption! Pure starvation had been staved off by these sweet little legumes! And since all this took place around the first of the year, it was taken as a "divine" intervention of sorts. That good luck for the South was sure to follow.

Well, of course, we lost the War, so good luck in that sense didn't follow. But, the survivors from Georgia (or Alabama, or South Carolina) never forgot how black-eyed peas had saved them from starvation. And, and whether they remained after the conflict, or migrated west to Texas, the memory spread and eventually became a region wide custom.

Ok. THAT is one theory. And yes, the one I love! *smiles*. However, the OTHER is a bit more interesting. It says that all the above was just a marketing ploy on the part of a really smart East Texas fellow. AND? If so, it really was great.

It is rather lengthy, so I will create another post to prove the link and the reading...

Gimme a minute....

[lizziebeth]

Originally Posted by leavingcali

My mouth is watering. Can I come?

Originally Posted by momof2dfw

Yep, those greens do stink up the house. That is why I make sure to have plenty of other aromas going on to cover up those. I always knew something "green" for New Years Day for "money" but never collards. My husbands family is from Alabama and that is when I heard collards were what they fixed. Know others from East Texas that do collards or rather "greens". Just say "greens" and people will know what you mean. For instance here is a rundown of the menu at my house on New Years Day when we invite all of our friends to come over and share in great hospitality, football and to start off the new year w/ friends.

Baked Ham
Grilled Chicken Breasts
Collard Greens
Spinach
Homemade Cream Corn
Mashed Potatos
Sweet Potato Casserole
Macoroni & Cheese (not that Kraft stuff either)
Salad made of Romaine lettuce, walnuts/pecans, dried cranberries and crumbled gorgonzola cheese
Yeast Rolls & butter
Pies - chocolate, coconut cream
Pumpkin roll
cookies

Ditto along with the person who wanted to come on over for the feast. I'll even bring all my Longhorn stuff!

[TexasReb]

Y'all still with me?

Here is the wording of the "black eyed pea hoax" thingy:

First, the link itself:

The Great Blackeyed Pea Hoax, Blackeyed Pea New Year Tradition.

Here is the article:

THE GREAT BLACKEYED PEA HOAX
by C. F. Eckhardt
Did you eat blackeyed peas for good luck on New Year's Day? Did you do so because it's a 'great ante-bellum Southern tradition?' If so, congratulations. You have been scammed by one of the most likeable con-artists in Texas history.

Blackeyed peas have been a Southern staple for centuries, it's true-but they were a staple food for 'po' folks' and animals. Traveler might have eaten blackeyed peas in his stall on New Year's Day, but you can bet they didn't grace the table of Marse Bob and family on that date. It was not, in fact, until World War I that blackeyed peas moved out of the sharecropper's shanty and into the landowner's house. They're a good source of protein, and what with things like 'Meatless Tuesdays' during the First World War, they were used primarily as a meat substitute.

In 1947 a feller named Elmore Torn, Sr. was hired as the flack for the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce. You probably won't remember Elmore Sr., but you might have heard of his son, Elmore Jr. He's an actor better known as 'Rip' Torn.

At the time Elmore Sr. was hired on, there wasn't much to promote in Henderson County. There was farming-and oil-and farming-and oil-and that was pretty close to it. There was a pottery manufacturing business, and there was a cannery. The cannery canned, among other things, blackeyed peas.

If you open a can of blackeyed peas these days, you've got a reasonably good product. It's not as good as shelling the peas themselves and cooking them up with hamhocks and spices in your own kitchen, but it ain't bad. The same could not be said for canned blackeyed peas in 1947. When you opened a can what you saw was something that looked like lumpy, grayish-brown library paste with dark brown spots scattered in it. What you tasted was, in essence, salty tin. The canning process picked up the taste of the metal the cans were lined with. In other words, that stuff was downright awful and it's a miracle anyone ate it at all.

Elmore Torn, Sr. was tasked with the job of creating a market for this all-but-inedible mess. He came up with an idea that caught on so thoroughly people now believe eating blackeyed peas on New Year's Day for good luck is a long-standing tradition dating to the ante-bellum South.

Blackeyed peas, Elmore wrote in a tract he had the Chamber publish, were a long-standing Southern culinary delight that graced the tables of high and low society all across the ante-bellum South, particularly on New Year's Day, when no proper Southern table would be without them. Eating blackeyed peas on New Year's Day brought good luck. Yankees, in the hated Reconstruction period, suppressed this fine old Southern tradition, and it was in danger of being lost. Even General Lee and President Davis ate blackeyed peas on New Year's for good luck, and because of that the Yankees tried to stamp out all memory of this time-honored Southern tradition. It was time this tradition was revived all across the South. And, of course, how better to revive it than to serve conveniently-packaged canned blackeyed peas from Henderson County, Texas?

Elmore had the Chamber print up several hundred of these fliers. Then he went to the cannery and had an equal number of 2-ounce cans of blackeyed peas made up. He sent the scam-and a 2-ounce can of blackeyed peas from Henderson County, Texas-to the food editors of every major daily newspaper in the South. The peas-and the story-hit the food editors' desks right after Thanksgiving.

At the time, there really wasn't a 'traditional' meal for New Year's. Thanksgiving-and sometimes Christmas-was turkey, and of course Easter was ham, the 4th of July and Labor Day were either hot dogs or burgers cooked outside, but beyond that there weren't any really 'traditional' holiday foods in the South. Exactly how many food editors bit Elmore's hook we don't know, but he continued mailing copies of his scam and the 2-ounce cans of blackeyed peas to food editors across the south for several more years. Each year more and more food editors got on the bandwagon. Elmore started the 'tradition,' not of eating blackeyed peas per se, but the specific 'tradition' of eating blackeyed peas for good luck on New Year's Day-a 'tradition' which had never existed before 1947.

He eventually retired and moved to Williamson County, where he became known as 'The Sage of Circleville.' Circleville, incidentally, is-or was, when I was a youngster chasing cattle on a little place about 30 miles west of it--a mostly-ghost town at the intersection of Texas 29 and Texas 95, between Taylor and Granger. At the time it had a dancehall frequented by girls from Taylor-not those girls, the other ones-and Granger, and an abandoned cotton gin, and that was about all there was to Circleville. Elmore was known for insisting that Circleville was a far more cosmopolitan place than New York City. After all, almost no one in New York had ever heard of Circleville, Texas-but might near everyone in Circleville had heard of New York City at least once.

Elmore's been gone a good many years now, but his 'tradition' continues. He's where all the good flacks end up, and no doubt he's having a good laugh over all the 'sophisticated' big-city-newspaper food editors he conned with that yarn and those 2-ounce cans of blackeyed peas. And, yep-I'll have blackeyed peas on my table come New Year's Day. Not because I think they'll bring good luck in the New Year, but to honor Elmore Torn, Sr.-the guy who parlayed 2-ounce cans of blackeyed peas and a tale cut from whole cloth into a 'time-honored Southern tradition.' Besides, I like 'em.
© C. F. Eckhardt
"Charley Eckhardt's Texas" >
January 1, 2007 column

***********************

[TexasReb]

My FINAL post on this matter. Because, for one thing, I don't care to get kilt by fellow Texans and Southerners over being the messenger!

Personally? I don't really know. I DO know that, several years ago, the iconoclastic tale was part of a "letter to the editor" in the Dallas Morning News. Outraged Texans and other Southerners wrote in to accuse the fellow who first presented it with facts all the way from remembering it was a "good luck" custom in their own family wayyyy back before the so-called "hoax", to others accusing the writer of being a "damn yankee" who needed to be hauled off and shot.

Ok. That is my presentation. For me? I am somewhere in between as to the real truth of it all. My analogy is whether or not Davy Crockett really surrendered at the Alamo when all hope was gone, or whether he went down swinging Ol' Betsy to the very end.

Whatever history may say, I will always prefer to believe the legend. And if that feller from East Texas stretched the truth a bit? He also created, as the article said, a Southern tradition as entrenched as any could be. And we love it.

To paraphrase the renowned historian Walter Lord. Is there any real evidence that the legend ISN'T true? If not...then let us believe it. *smiles*

[texasorbust]

Thanks TexasReb for the interesting posts, I would like to believe the legend. Besides I'm going to make it a new family tradition for my family come New Years Day. New house, new state,new neighbors and now a new family tradition. Hopefully new friends to join us in welcoming the New Year eating black-eyed peas.

[momof2dfw]

Originally Posted by texasorbust

Thanks TexasReb for the interesting posts, I would like to believe the legend. Besides I'm going to make it a new family tradition for my family come New Years Day. New house, new state,new neighbors and now a new family tradition. Hopefully new friends to join us in welcoming the New Year eating black-eyed peas.

Well there ya go. Thats the spirit . I'd invite ya over for the welcoming in of the New Year but I don't get many takers on that one and I doubt I do for sure this year. My oldest will be turning 13 on New Years Eve and will be having a slumber party . I think I need a whole bottle of champagne for myself to survive that one. I'll see if I'm up to carrying on our New Years Day Lunch. I may be beat down and ready to crawl in a hole. That is after I have to make the donuts that they all insist on for breakfast on the mornings of sleepovers........... You don't think the other parents would get too upset if I spiked their kids sodas w/ Benedryl sometime around 8 pm do ya


Speaking of making donuts. We used to do this as a kid and I still LOVE them as do my kids and all of their friends. I get a kick out of the ones who tell their moms when they pick them up and mom says, "we used to do that when I was a kid". LOL!!! These are SUPER EASY!

1 can of the cheapest can biscuits (or 2 cans )
lay out on wax paper and we use an empty pill bottle cleaned out to cut out the donut hole.
Drop into hot oil and flip when light golden brown
Remove when both sides are light golden brown and put on paper towels to drain.
Dip in icing

The icing is also the same recipe for "Chocolate Gravy" but make it thicker for donut icing. I don't measure though.

1 lb of powdered sugar
2 tablespoons Cocoa
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

I add the milk a little at a time as if you add too much it is runny and you have to keep adding more powdered sugar. It may take a teaspoon or so more just keep mixing w/ a spoon till you get the right consistency. For the donut icing it will be THICK! I like to make the icing before I make the donuts so it is ready to go for the hot donuts.

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by texasorbust

Thanks TexasReb for the interesting posts, I would like to believe the legend. Besides I'm going to make it a new family tradition for my family come New Years Day. New house, new state,new neighbors and now a new family tradition. Hopefully new friends to join us in welcoming the New Year eating black-eyed peas.

As momof2dfw said "That's the spirit." Just keep in mind that, contrary to what the the East Texas fellow might have wanted Southerners to believe, black-eyed peas out of a can are only to be used as a "last resort." The BEST are fresh shelled. If no fresh ones are available, buying them "dried" (to be soaked until "full", and then boiled with bacon or hamhocks just as one would fresh) are the next best thing.

Something else which is a staple of "old fashioned Southern cooking" that you ought to try sometime is fried okra! IMHO, the combination of black-eyed peas and crisp fried okra is an unbeatable duo!

[texasorbust]

Momof2dfw and TexasReb you both are making me hungry. I going to have to try both recipes. I have never have had okra and never heard of "Chocolate Gravy" Lots of new things to try. I can't wait to start our new adverture in Texas. We should fund today. So it looks like we will be Texans by next weekend.

Momof2dfw. Last sleepover my 13 year old girl had I said I will never do that again. I like the idea of Benedryl. LOL

[TexasReb]

Originally Posted by texasorbust

Momof2dfw and TexasReb you both are making me hungry. I going to have to try both recipes. I have never have had okra and never heard of "Chocolate Gravy" Lots of new things to try. I can't wait to start our new adverture in Texas. We should fund today. So it looks like we will be Texans by next weekend.

Momof2dfw. Last sleepover my 13 year old girl had I said I will never do that again. I like the idea of Benedryl. LOL

Okra is probably THE quintinsential Southern food. Likely, because it will not grow well other than in hot, humid, climates. Therefore, many folks from Up North, or Out West, have never even heard of it!

Also, (just ask any Texan or other Southerner who has grown and picked it), it has a character all its own. It is best planted in late spring, and comes to fruition during the hottest part of the summer. It THRIVES in heat, and once it starts growing, it GROWS! LOL The plants need to be checked at the very minimum of every other day, or else the pods which seemed small the other day become too large to be any good a few days later!

And? It is "sticky and itchy" to pick and handle fresh off the plant itself. Ever had any experience with laying that pink fiberglass insulation in a home? It is something akin to that.

Too? When sliced, it oozes sweats a sort of slime which many unfamiliar with it find "gross." BUT..the slime is indicitive of that the pod is a good, fresh one fit to cook. That is to say, if a knife can't slide thru it easily, then the pod is too aged to be any good. A general rule of thumb (no pun intended) are that the best ones for the dinner or supper table is that they be no longer than your middle finger.

Now then, here is my little contribution to how to properly prepare fried okra. I wrote it once for a chat forum, and it ended up being published in the connected webzine! LOL

Here she be:

Fried okra - Southern cooking - Randy Hill

[Lakewooder]

To go with the blackeyed peas and fried okra -- a slice of vine-ripened tomato and onion!

And plenty of iced-tea.