A Pea By Any Other Name

trying to sort shit out and the history of black-eyed peas

name another pea inspired band. we’ll wait.

Welcome back dear supporters. This week is our second to last installment in our Beans and Rice series AKA Michelle has eaten so many beans in the last 2 months she can’t tie her shoes without farting. This week we’re examining a true global phenomenon: black-eyed peas. But first, what’s the fucking difference between a pea and a bean?

We touched on this briefly at the outset of the series but honestly, it can be tough to get a straight answer . Seriously, googling it is a fucking nightmare. 

Like we said at the beginning, a legume is the pod, fruit, or seed of a plant in the Fabaceae or Leguminosae family.  Sounds easy enough BUT here’s where the confusion starts because that is the third largest family of flowering plants in the world with over 20,000 species. It’s hard to be consistent when you’ve got 20,000 members of a family, ask any mom. Famous legumes include beans, peas, peanuts, chickpeas, soybeans, and lentils. Everyone is a legume. Ok, easy enough. But these guys are also pulses because nothing is ever easy.

A pulse is the edible seed from a legume plant. Pulses include beans, lentils, and peas. For example, a pea pod is a legume, but the pea inside the pod is the pulse. Beans in their various forms- kidney, black, pinto, navy, chickpeas, etc- are just one type of pulse. OK, but why isn’t everyone just called a pea OR a bean then? WHY ARE THERE TWO TERMS???? Well, here is the closest answer we could find thanks to The Penguin Companion to Food via The Library of Congress, bean is a “term loosely applied to any legume whose seeds or pods are eaten, not classed separately as a pea or lentil.” So apparently the answer is a bean is a bean when someone decides to call it that. Great.

to identify the bean simply check the vibes

That brings us to the star of the show: black-eyed peas which are considered beans and not peas because apparently, we just categorize foods based on ~vibes~. Just like identifying porn. Originally from West Africa, black-eyed peas- also known as cowpeas- were domesticated there and spread east through to India where they remain a staple to this day. While moderately popular in Europe through the Middle Ages, mainly as livestock feed, black-eyed peas found themselves spreading throughout the world due to the African diaspora as part of the Atlantic slave trade. Nutritious and easy to grow in a variety of climates, black-eyed peas remained a tie back to ancestral cultures and foodways long after all other identities had been erased and eradicated by the institution and perpetuation of slavery.

This history is reflected in the foods of areas of the Americas where black-eyed peas remain extremely popular: the Southern United States, Brazil, and the Caribbean. All three regions have economies that were built on the backs of African slaves and they continue to grapple with that legacy. 

areas of domestication of African crops from In the Shadow of Slavery: Africa’s Botanical Legacy in the Atlantic World by Judith Carney

Today, Nigeria is the largest producer, importer, and consumer of black-eyed peas. African countries produce over 96% of the estimated annual harvest of black-eyed peas each year, with Nigeria accounting for 61% of the continent’s share and 58% globally. We could all try to be a little more like Nigeria because when it comes to food, they know what's good and that’s beans, bitches.  

Work these lil miracle foods into your diet this week with our Black-Eyed Pea Fried Rice, a brand-new recipe just for y’all here in the supporters edition of The Broiler Room. It’s fast, easy, and full of familiar flavors mixed together in new ways. We’re obsessed and confident you will be too.

Black-Eyed Pea Fried Rice

Make enough for 4

2 tablespoons olive oils, divided

1 small yellow onion, chopped

1 small red bell pepper, chopped,

1 rib of celery, chopped

1 jalapeno, deseeded and minced

4 cloves of garlic, mined

1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, skinned and minced (about 1 tablespoon)

2 cups cooked black-eyed peas  (frozen, canned, or cooked from scratch

)¾ teaspoon smoked paprika

½ teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon dried thyme

2 tablespoons Braggs Amino Acids or soy sauce, divided

4 cups of leftover cooked long grain rice, like basmati*

Juice of 1 lemon

½ cup sliced green onions

In a wok or large braiser pan, warm up the first olive oil over a medium high heat. Add the onion with a pinch of salt and sauté for about 2-3 minutes or until the onion starts to soften. Add the bell pepper and sauté for another 3 minutes until they soften up too. Add the black-eyed peas, garlic, and ginger to the pot and stir it all up. Now, in a small bowl mix together the paprika, cumin, black pepper, and thyme. Add about half of the mixture to the pan along with one of the tablespoons of Braggs. Stir until everything is coated then turn off the heat. Scrap the veggies and beans out of the pan into a bowl because right now? IT’S RICE TIME.

Warm the pan back up to medium high heat and add the remaining tablespoon of oil. Add the cold rice into the pan and keep it moving so that it all gets a little oil on it and starts to warm up, about 2 minutes. Now add the rest of the spice mixture and Braggs and stir until the rice is all coated and warmed up, another 3-5 minutes. Now fold in the bean and veggies, drizzle over the lemon juice and fold in the green onions. Turn off the heat and taste. Add whatever the fuck you think it needs to take it where you want it to go: more salt, more spices, whatever you’re feeling. Serve it warm topped with some extra green onions.

* You wanna use cold, leftover rice so that it doesn’t get all mushy when you try to pan fry it up. This is CRITICAL otherwise it’ll be shitty if you don’t listen.

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Thank y’all again for joining us here every Sunday in The Broiler Room. We appreciate all the comments, emails, and support we get each week from you guys. Next week we’ll be dropping an all new scone recipe on our social channels so keep your eyes peeled. Otherwise, we’ll see you here next week while we finishing this motherfucker out with our favorite legume: lentils. Wild shit, we know.

Michelle and Matt