Black-Eyed Pea

This dish is also known as Texas caviar.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less. Although we call for canned black-eyed peas, you can use frozen peas or cook up a batch of dried ones.

Offer seasoned tortilla chips alongside, as well as bagged lettuce tossed with ranch dressing. Try vanilla pudding topped with diced pineapple for dessert.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This dish is wonderful served with mashed potatoes.

This dish harks back to West Africa, where black-eyed peas, according to some culinary historians, were eaten prior to European arrival. Certainly for many African-Americans, black-eyed peas were, and are still, the staff of life. They turn up with rice in Hoppin' John, the traditional New Year's dish that has spread from South Carolina to the rest of the South; and they are often served at other times of the year as a main dish or vegetable. This is a basic recipe. The black-eyed peas may also be cooked with a ham bone, a precooked ham hock, or with olive oil instead of bacon fat. This last sacrifices the traditional smoky taste to contemporary concerns about cholesterol, but whatever way black-eyed peas are served, they're delicious. Black-eyed peas can even be pickled, as in this recipe, which also goes by the name of Texas caviar. The dish can be prepared with either cooked dried black-eyed peas, canned ones, or, if you are really lucky and live in an area where they can be obtained, with fresh ones. May be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

A new variation of the classic bean dip.

There has been much debate over the strange name of this rice and bean combination. One theory suggests that "Hoppin' John" is a corruption of pois à pigeon, French for pigeon peas, with which the dish was originally made in the French colonies of the Caribbean, where it was likely created.

These fritters are called akara in Nigeria and Sierra Leone, and akla or koosé in Ghana. They're eaten as a snack, side dish, or breakfast, served with a hot pepper relish (ata). We think they make a great hors d'oeuvre. Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 9 hr (includes soaking time)