Southern Comfort

I'm more or less a stranger to Southern cooking - most Southern dishes weren't served in my house when I was growing up and only recently have I gotten interested in trying some. You may have noticed, and even remarked upon, the number of grits posts I've written recently. Here's a new twist, Blackeyed peas.

Aren't they pretty? I thought I'd show them to you before they got cooked, as they changed to rather boring browneyed peas once I cooked them. Not pretty at all. But, really, quite delicious.

The package directions said to soak them for a long time before cooking but one of the character flaws my teachers always remarked upon was my lack of patience. "Pamela needs to learn to be more careful." "Pamela is impatient sometimes." You get the drift.

So, I just sautéed some chopped onion and sliced garlic in olive oil in the bottom of a big pot, added the rinsed peas to the pot, covered the veggies with a mixture of half water and half vegetable broth, and set them to boil. I had purchased a smoked ham shank the day before and asked the butcher to cut it into three pieces. When the beans reached a boil, I lowered the heat and added shank to the pot. All this simmered together for a couple of hours, the beans softening and losing their stark black "eyes," the ham slowly breaking apart to spread its smoky richness all through the pot.

Served over brown Massa rice, it was truly comfort food, solid, sustaining and deep-down warming. We did find it ever so slightly bland, even with black pepper added at the table, until My Beloved hit on the idea of adding a little of Chilebrown's fiery hot sauce, dot by dot, and that made all the difference. The slight hint of heat and the richness of flavor turned Southern comfort into something lively and unexpected.