Hoppin' John, also known as Carolina peas and rice, is a rice and beans dish of legendary origins associated with the

cuisine of the Southern United States The cuisine of the Southern United States encompasses diverse food traditions of several subregions, including Indigenous cuisine of the Americas, cuisine of Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands, Southeastern Native American tribes, ...

. Similar dishes are found in regions with a significant African-origin demographic like Louisiana red beans and rice. The Carolina version is known for the addition of bacon and other kinds of pork. The starchy long-grain Carolina rice that is used in this meal must be washed well and cooked in bacon fat with onions until the grains are translucent before it is simmered with the parboiled

black-eyed pea The black-eyed pea or black-eyed bean is a legume grown around the world for its medium-sized, edible bean. It is a subspecies of the cowpea, an Old World plant domesticated in Africa, and is sometimes simply called a cowpea. The common commerci ...

s or Sea Island red peas and some chopped ham, ham hock or pork sausage. To finish the one-pot meal, the rice, having absorbed all the cooking liquid, is left to steam using the paper towel method for around 10 minutes and it is fluffed before serving. Some recipes use ham hock,

fatback Fatback is a layer of subcutaneous fat taken from under the skin of the back of a domestic pig, with or without the skin (referred to as pork rind). In cuisine Fatback is a preferred fat for various forms of charcuterie, particularly sau ...

, country sausage, or smoked turkey parts instead of bacon. A few use green peppers or

vinegar Vinegar () is an aqueous solution of diluted acetic acid and trace compounds that may include flavorings. Vinegar typically contains from 5% to 18% acetic acid by volume. Usually, the acetic acid is produced by a double fermentation, converting ...

and

spice In the culinary arts, a spice is any seed, fruit, root, Bark (botany), bark, or other plant substance in a form primarily used for flavoring or coloring food. Spices are distinguished from herbs, which are the leaves, flowers, or stems of pl ...

s. Smaller than black-eyed peas, field peas are used in the South Carolina Lowcountry and coastal Georgia. Black-eyed peas are the norm elsewhere. In the southern United States, eating Hoppin' John with collard greens on

New Year's Day In the Gregorian calendar, New Year's Day is the first day of the calendar year, January 1, 1 January. Most solar calendars, such as the Gregorian and Julian calendars, begin the year regularly at or near the December solstice, northern winter ...

is thought to bring a prosperous year filled with luck. The peas are symbolic of pennies or coins, and a coin is sometimes added to the pot or left under the dinner bowls. Collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens,

chard Chard (; '' Beta vulgaris'' subsp. ''vulgaris'', Cicla Group and Flavescens Group) is a green leafy vegetable. In the cultivars of the Flavescens Group, or Swiss chard, the leaf stalks are large and often prepared separately from the leaf b ...

kale Kale (), also called leaf cabbage, belongs to a group of cabbage (''Brassica oleracea'') cultivars primarily grown for their Leaf vegetable, edible leaves; it has also been used as an ornamental plant. Its multiple different cultivars vary quite ...

cabbage Cabbage, comprising several cultivars of '' Brassica oleracea'', is a leafy green, red (purple), or white (pale green) biennial plant grown as an annual vegetable crop for its dense-leaved heads. It is descended from the wild cabbage ( ''B.& ...

and similar leafy green vegetables served along with this dish are supposed to further add to the wealth, since they are the color of American currency. Another traditional food,

cornbread Cornbread is a quick bread made with cornmeal, associated with the cuisine of the Southern United States, with origins in Native American cuisine. It is an example of batter bread. Dumplings and pancakes made with finely ground cornmeal are st ...

, can also be served to represent wealth, being the color of gold. On the day after New Year's Day, leftover "Hoppin' John" is called "Skippin' Jenny" and further demonstrates one's frugality, bringing a hope for an even better chance of prosperity in the New Year.

Etymology

Early print references

The ''Oxford English Dictionarys first reference to the dish is from

Frederick Law Olmsted Frederick Law Olmsted (April 26, 1822 – August 28, 1903) was an American landscape architect, journalist, Social criticism, social critic, and public administrator. He is considered to be the father of landscape architecture in the U ...

's 19th century travelogue, ''A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States'' (1861). A recipe for "Hopping John" in ''The Carolina Housewife'' by Sarah Rutledge, which was published in 1847, is also cited as the earliest reference. An even earlier source is ''Recollections of a Southern Matron'', which mentions "Hopping John", defined, in a note, as "bacon and rice", as early as 1838.

Lexical source

The origins of the name are uncertain. One possibility is that the name is a

corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activities ...

of the

Haitian Creole Haitian Creole (; , ; , ), or simply Creole (), is a French-based creole languages, French-based creole language spoken by 10 to 12million people worldwide, and is one of the two official languages of Haiti (the other being French), where it ...

term for

black-eyed peas The black-eyed pea or black-eyed bean is a legume grown around the world for its medium-sized, edible bean. It is a subspecies of the cowpea, an Old World plant domesticated in Africa, and is sometimes simply called a cowpea. The common comme ...

: pwa pijon (), literally meaning "pigeon peas" in English, but referring not to the variety known as pigeon peas in English but rather what are called

in English. The Haitian Creole term pwa pijon is a

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

of the French term pois

pigeon Columbidae is a bird family consisting of doves and pigeons. It is the only family in the order Columbiformes. These are stout-bodied birds with small heads, relatively short necks and slender bills that in some species feature fleshy ceres. ...

History

Hoppin' John originated from the Gullah people and was originally a

Lowcountry The Lowcountry (sometimes Low Country or just low country) is a geographic and cultural region along South Carolina's coast, including the Sea Islands. The region includes significant salt marshes and other coastal waterways, making it an impor ...

one-pot dish before spreading to the entire population of the South. Hoppin' John may have evolved from rice and bean mixtures that were the subsistence of enslaved West Africans en route to the Americas. Hoppin' John has been further traced to similar foods in West Africa, in particular the Senegalese dish ''thiebou niebe''. One tradition common in the United States is that each person at the meal should leave three peas on their plate to ensure that the New Year will be filled with luck, fortune and romance. Another tradition holds that counting the number of peas in a serving predicts the amount of luck, or wealth, that the diner will have in the coming year. On Sapelo Island in the community of Hog Hammock, Geechee red peas are used instead of black-eyed peas. Sea Island red peas are similar. American chef Sean Brock claims that traditional Hoppin' John was made with Carolina Gold rice, once thought to be extinct, and Sea Island red peas. He has worked with farmers to re-introduce this variety of rice. As of 2017, several rice growers offer Carolina Gold rice.Charlie Rose Interview, Episode 129, Season 20

Variants

Other bean and rice dishes are seen in Southern Louisiana and in the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

, and are often associated with African culinary influence in the Americas. The Louisiana Creole version is called ''congri'', and other regional variants include the Guyanese dish "cook-up rice", which uses black-eyed peas and coconut milk; "Hoppin' Juan," which substitutes Cuban black beans for black-eyed peas; the Peruvian tacu-tacu; and the Brazilian dish baião de dois, which often uses black-eyed peas.

References

External links

How to make Hoppin' John
{{Legume dishes Legume dishes Lowcountry cuisine American rice dishes Bacon dishes New Year foods Soul food Cuisine of the Southern United States African-American cuisine