Mark Millican: About those black-eyed peas

Published 8:00 am Saturday, December 30, 2023

When it came to Christmas family traditions around the Millican household, my mother was the one who kicked proceedings into high gear — showing us boys how to use a needle and thread to string freshly-popped popcorn (what we didn’t eat) for girdling the Christmas tree, plunging cloves into oranges and placing them on the fireplace mantel for a unique scent, and, of course, baking cookies and other goodies in the oven.

My father’s turn at the stove was when he painstakingly melted metal to cast “leadhead” lures for fishing season — which was about any time weather allowed back in the day.

For New Year’s Day itself, black-eyed peas were always on the menu, and Mom washed off a thin, silvery dime and plopped it into the steaming pot of beans. That’s right, according to Library of Congress records, vigna unguiculata is not actually a pea but a bean. We may not trust Congress anymore, but maybe their library is right on this one. Anyway, the lucky finder of the dime would have prosperity and success the entire year. (OK, Mom, this is just now hitting me, but was this Southern folk tale dreamed up by a frustrated mother just to make kids eat peas? Hmm …)

Awhile back, West Side friend Steve Hall mentioned something about black-eyed peas and why we eat them on New Year’s Day. So I made a note to self and got back with him a few weeks ago. From here on out, most of this is what Steve — keeper of the Dunagan Cemetery Facebook page and longtime Civil War aficionado — recalls hearing of this culinary staple of Southern kitchens. He admitted up front he has not sourced the following.

“The way I heard it is that as Sherman’s army was moving through Georgia from Atlanta to Savannah and beyond, his men were ordered to destroy anything that could possibly be used by the Confederate Army, which included practically all foodstuffs,” he began. “Never mind that the people needed the food — if the Confederates might be able to use it, destroy it. In carrying out these orders, all livestock they could get their hands on was either taken for their own use or killed to prevent it being used by anyone else, to the point of even throwing the dead animals into wells, creeks and rivers to deny its use by the Southern people.”

Steve notes that around 150 years ago, there were “different ideas” concerning foods we eat in abundance today. For example, tomatoes were once considered poisonous, and for good reason. According to an online article in Reader’s Digest earlier this year, “In the late 1700s, Europeans drew a false connection to dying aristocrats. These ill-fated aristocrats ate tomatoes off pewter plates and often got sick and died after ingesting the red fruit.” (Tomatoes are not vegetables, as some already know. For those who did not, see how much you can learn by reading to start the New Year!)

Reader’s Digest elaborates, “But the cause of death was actually due to the high-lead content of their pewter plates.” (And it’s probably a good thing they hadn’t figured out how to cook leadheads over the cooking fire three centuries ago.) We’re digressing a bit. However, in this case analogy is a good reason.

Steve continues, “Black-eyed peas were another product that people didn’t eat, but it was an excellent food for cattle and other livestock. So silos were full of black-eyed peas, and since this was not food fit for people it was not bothered by Sherman’s minions. After all, if it was only good for animal feed and the animals were all taken off or killed, there was no reason to destroy the peas.”

Sherman’s harshly relentless March to the Sea — the “most destructive campaign against a civilian population during the Civil War,” according to the New Georgia Encyclopedia — began in Atlanta on Nov. 15, 1864, and concluded in Savannah five weeks later on Dec. 21. For black-eyed peas, er, beans, the timing is important.

“By the time the New Year came along, this cattle food was about all that was left for the people to eat for the rest of the winter, that and wild greens such as poke salad,” said Steve. “With the end of the war coming in the spring, even with the devastation left behind, by the next new year conditions were looking up. So to commemorate the hard times of the end months of the war, Southerners would be sure to eat black-eyed peas and greens to pay homage to those hard times.”

Since Steve indicated there needed to be sourcing, I asked another friend, Greg Cockburn, who also is an area historian on the Civil War. Greg sent me to the Library of Congress website and added, “I believe the good luck angle originated with the Africans.”

Legendary radio commentator Paul Harvey would say, “And now you know the rest of the story.” But wait, there’s more! Here are some little-known facts about the humble, yet edible, black-eyed pea from the Library of Congress:

• Cultivated since pre-historic times in China and India, they are related to the mung bean. The ancient Greeks and Romans preferred them to chickpeas.

• Brought to the West Indies by enslaved West Africans, by earliest records in 1674.

• In the American South, eating black-eyed peas and greens (such as collards) on New Year’s Day is considered good luck: The peas symbolize coins and the greens symbolize paper money. (So now we see where the dime comes in.)

• They are a key ingredient in Hoppin’ John (peas, rice and pork) and part of African American “soul food.”

• Originally called “mogette” (French for nun). The black eye in the center of the bean (where it attaches to the pod) reminded some of a nun’s head attire.

Next year: Perhaps we’ll look at cornbread or collard greens. However, I really doubt it. But who knows what can happen in 12 months’ time? Happy New Year — here’s hoping you find the dime!

Mark Millican is a former staff writer for the Dalton Daily Citizen.