Chef Jim Noble

What a wonderful time of year for fresh produce from local farmers.  Right now we are enjoying the best of heirloom tomatoes and local peas and beans.

This is an article I wrote for the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association publication (http://www.carolinafarmstewards.org)

Ahh, Those Wonderful Bean and Peas, Whatever you Call Them

When I sit at my desk on this cold, rainy, almost snowing February night, it seems a far cry from the great bean, peas and legumes on my mind from last fall, or even from the upcoming spring vegetables that seem so close, yet so far away.  I believe that winter gives us a chance to rest and reflect and build our anticipation for the next season’s harvest.  Of my most favorite are the beans, peas and vegetables closely related to the Carolinas and the South.

Looking ahead to the hot days of summer as you drive the back roads to the beach, the roadsides are specked with handmade signs for home grown vegetables, but most particularly the baby lima beans.  Affectionately called butter beans, these are best when you pick them small.  I recall the wonderful rural smells of turned dirt, summer hot breezes with the sound of cars and trucks occasionally whizzing by on these beach bound state roads.  What I don’t see as much on the road, but usually find during family reunions, church picnics and out of proud family gardens are my favorites, the southern peas.  They come in many varieties, shapes, colors and names.  Trying to find the names is like trying to get the best advice on local barbecue, which differs according to the queried pit man.  It seems like each farmer or farmer’s market clerk has their own idea of what they are called.  But let’s make a go of it.

Last fall’s crop of beans and peas was the most spectacular, or shall I say, the most spectacular for me as a chef.  Each week as we headed back from the farmer’s markets – take your pick – our cell phones would ring with the typical question, “What type of peas or beans did you find today, Chef Noble?”  They’re kinda getting use to the idea that I love these little “scutters” and keep bringing in all types.  My favorites last fall were the white acorn field pea, or by some folks nomenclature, white acre field peas.  Either way you say it, they were great.  I hadn’t seen these before, but when we eyed them at the farmer’s market (referred to from here on as the “market”) I knew I had to have them.  Little did I know how great these peas would be.  Now these aren’t your normal pea, like the English pea, but typical of southern peas.  These look more like the beans or peas inside the green bean.  These were only one of the several peas we served last year.  We had field peas, crowder peas, cow peas, pink eyed peas among others, but we just couldn’t get a handle on their names.  Oh I had names for them, but mine didn’t always match the farmer’s, nor did the farmer’s names match up with other farmers.

So I began my quest on the proper names.  Now I don’t mean the proper scientific name, but the proper name used by a Southern gentleman farmer or chef.  (I like to throw us chefs in the likes of the Southern gentlemen).  If you ask one farmer what some peas are, he may tell you one name and another farmer may give you his name of the pea with his interpretation with history to back it up.  Now for this dissertation I am not referring to garden or English pea, but to the princely southern peas and their family, namely the crowder pea, field pea, purple hull pea, white acre pea, pink eyed pea and the granddaddy of them all here in the Southeastern part of the states, the black eyed pea.

My favorite, until the white acre (acorn) field pea, was the small brown field pea.  Now one gentleman may tell you that field peas are the ones left in the field to dry, and he may be right.  But oftentimes the name field peas refers to the delectable small oval shaped brown pea that cooks up so delicious.  One of my favorite college buddy’s mom used to cook field peas along with a dozen other fresh vegetables from her garden for us when we would visit.  Those times, are to this day, some of my fondest “food” memories.

I made my mind up to find out more about the names of these peas and beans so I called Maria and Dane Fisher of Fisher Farms.  We talked about the fact that these relatively few number of peas had quite a few names and that she mentioned that she would call her professor from college where she studied horticulture.  When I asked her where he was, she said Penn State.  I said never mind.  He is too far removed from the small, fertile, flat farms of rural eastern North and South Carolina.  He may not know what we were talking about, particularly when it comes to the many names of field peas.  Furthermore, I don’t need the Latin name, just what the good ole folks from around here call them.

Look at this from www.southernexposure.com :

Southern Peas or Cowpeas:

Southern peas, cowpeas, field peas: (Vigna unguiculata) Black-eyed peas: (Vigna unguiculata unguiculata) This vegetable seems to have a different name in each section of the country. Southern peas are also called cowpeas, field peas, crowder peas, and black-eyed peas. By whatever name you call them, they’re an old favorite in the South

That’s what I’m talking about.  They might as well have said a different name in each county.  Whatever you call them, they are the beloved peas of the South.  And don’t’ forget speckled butter beans, succotash (corn and butter beans) now famous at Rooster’s Wood Fired Kitchen, October beans, fresh pinto beans (if you have never had them fresh and not dried, you are in for a treat), and I am looking forward to finding out about some others I have not tried, like rice peas – tiny white seeds as small as rice, pre-1860 southern cowpea.

Well if you are confused, then join the team.  But who cares, if you know what you like and you can recognize it when you see it, you are in good shape.  Buy them or grow them, but cook them and eat them.

I like to cook all of these in pure water with extra virgin olive oil, butter and sometimes a smidgeon of prosciutto – better known as country ham around here.  Use just enough water to cover, season with butter, salt and pepper and cook on low heat until tender.  Peas and beans have a cooking tipping point.  Just under this point and they taste too green, too much and they get mushy, but cook them in the middle and they are sweet, nutty and healthy.

By the way, I still enjoy fresh English or garden peas!