Hoppin’ John

Hoppin’ John is South Carolina’s signature dish. Made with rice and peas, it is eaten throughout the South for good luck on New Year’s Day, typically accompanied by greens and cornbread. The dish has its roots in South Carolina’s Low Country rice culture, which flourished under the experienced hands of rice-growing slaves from West Africa, who had prepared similar concoctions in their homeland. Most often, the legumes were cowpeas, or black-eyed peas (Vigna unguiculata), a common field crop in the South that was used both as food and animal feed. Congo peas, or pigeon peas (Cajanus cajan), also found their way into the dish, but never green or yellow field peas (Pisum sativum).