Cook Southern-Style Crowder Peas

Ingredients
•Ham hock
•Salt and pepper
•473 ml (2 cups) dried crowder peas
•1 small onion
•1 garlic clove
•Thyme sprigs
•Marjoram 
•Small okra pods or sliced okra, optional

Preparation

1. In a large pot combine the ham hock, salt and pepper as desired, and water to cover. Bring to a boil, and boil until ham hock is fork-tender, about 1 hour.
While the ham hock boils, dice the onion and peel and crush the garlic.

Once ham hock is tender add the peas, onion, and garlic. Season with thyme and marjoram to taste.

Return to a boil and test peas after approximately 1 hour. Peas should crush easily with a pinch.

Once peas are tender, add okra if using. Remove pot from heat, add okra, and cover, allowing the okra to cook on the residual heat until tender.

About the author

Clarissa Clifton is the author of One Hearth, One Pot: For Love of Food and History. Her focus of food history is on Southern poverty food. Southern poverty food is a term coined post Civil War and relates to food that was looked down on by those in the elite 10 percent both in and out of the South. Clarissa falls into the 90 percent that called it simply food. Southern poverty food not only related to how food was seasoned but the inventive ways it was prepared, ranging from roasting meats over saplings to baking chicken in cabbage leaves to rosin potatoes. Clarissa has made it her life mission to study the food that 90 percent of Southerners ate before and after the Civil War.

Courtesy photo

Clarissa Clifton

Clarissa Clifton is the author of One Hearth, One Pot: For Love of Food and History.

Crowder Peas

Ingredients

Preparation

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