Pat Branning’s Carolina Cooking: Summertime Southern Peas
Pat Branning’s Carolina Cooking
This charming painting of one of the squares in Savannah is titled “Morning at the Fountain” by Ray Ellis.
What a wonderful time of year for fresh produce from local farms. Driving the back roads to the beach, I noticed the roadsides are sprinkled with handmade signs for homegrown garden vegetables. I love the smell of the great salt marsh at low tide, the summer hot breezes with the sound of cars and trucks whizzing by on these beach bound state roads. What I miss seeing along the roadsides are my favorite southern peas. They show up at church picnics and family reunions and come in many varieties, shapes, colors and names. Each farmer has his own idea of what they should be called.
Southern peas, cowpeas, field peas, or black-eyed peas or whatever name you call them, they are the beloved peas of the South. I haven’t mentioned speckled butter beans, or succotash which is corn and butter beans, or fresh pinto beans. Ahh, those wonderful peas and corn – such humble ingredients cooked masterfully together in our home kitchens, formica diners and barbecue huts to produce the elixir that tastes and feels like home in the South.
I like to cook all of these in pure water with extra virgin olive oil, butter and a tiny bit of country ham. With just enough water to cover them, season with butter, salt and pepper and cook on low heat until tender. Peas have a cooking tipping point. Just under this point and they taste too green, too much and they get mushy, but cook them just right and they are sweet, nutty and healthy.
Some of my favorite childhood meals came from my grandmother’s kitchen in North Carolina. Usually there were several tables of aunts, uncles, cousins, parents and my older brother. The thing I remember most was the field peas cooking in a big pot with a chunk of pork side meat or ham hock. The liquid in the pot with the peas would turn brown. Right before everything was ready, my grandmother would add several tender okra pods to the peas but not stir them in. She would just lay them on top of the peas to steam and take them out to serve separately on a plate. I considered myself lucky if I got one of those okra pods from the pot, because none of them ever made it to the table.
This simple farm produce reflects the generations of commitment to the land and devotion to the processes that yield the greatest achievements in taste. By reviving the pleasures of the table, our food heritage can be saved.
There’s nothing better than a pot of Southern peas and some sliced tomato fresh from the vine out back, some spring onions and a slice of cornbread with a side of fresh dug new potatoes – what a wonderful dinner. This is part of what makes us uniquely Southern.
Pat Branning, the former women’s editor for WSB, Atlanta, is food editor for The Beaufort Tribune. She and her husband, Cloide, work together to help the underserved and uninsured in health care through a nonprofit organization called Wellness4America. Her new book of Lowcountry recipes, “Shrimp, Collards and Grits, recipes from the creeks and gardens of the South Carolina Lowcountry”, is available at bookstores in Beaufort and on Hilton Head. The website is www.mycarolinacooking.com.
Click here for more information about Pat Branning’s new cookbook.
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- Pat Branning’s Carolina Cooking: Lighter foods for hotter days
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- Pat Branning’s Carolina Cooking: Memorial Day and the Gullah Festival
- Pat Branning’s Carolina Cooking: It’s just peachy in South Carolina
- Pat Branning’s Carolina Cooking: From farm to feast
