On beans. Does the anarchist cookbook have a preparation method for black-eyed beans that would satisfy tradition and the palate simultaneously? I've always felt that eating them was like eating dirt - a good prepartion for a year of humility. Not appetizing. Martin
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I just read Jenny's recipe, and it sounds remarkably like my Oklahoma grandmother's. She was originally from Louisiana. She used salt pork and also served it with cornbread. For some reason we used to call them `peas' instead of beans.
Anyway. The best version of black eyed peas that I've had came from Texas. It's something like a cold bean salad. Do the usual clean pick, wash, soak routine. Or use the frozen or canned version. The trade off with packaged beans is they can't cook as long, so they can't suck up all the other flavors as well.
Cook with salted or smoke pork or chicken saving the broth. Drain and cool, then using some of the strained broth, mix in olive oil and vinegar.
>From here you can take what I think of as the Mexican track or the
Italian track. For the Mexican track, chop tomatoes, onions, bell
peppers and garlic mixing in vinegar and oil, cumin, jalapenos,
powdered chilis or make your favorite salsa. Then serve the cold
black eye peas with a large portion of the salsa on top. For the
Italian track use onions, tomatoes, garlic, peppers, olive oil, maybe
balsamic vinegar with sweet basil and oregano and serve the same
way.
I agree they have a dirt like flavor, so do black beans, so do lentils. But the trick is make them taste like good dirt.
Chuck Grimes