Come August, crowder peas are usually as plentiful as warts on toads, but you won’t find them languishing in the produce section of most local grocery stores. There’s just not much demand. Few folks have eaten, let alone cooked, fresh crowder peas. Sometimes called Southern, field or cowpeas, they are not peas at all, but legumes – beans.
Packed in their pods tighter than Dolly Parton in her Lycra knee pants, the nature of these small beasts is to mold or mildew if they sit too long. Unfortunately, they are the devil to shuck. Theirs are not wimpy pods, cracking at the pressure of a well-trained thumb like the English pea. No. Crowder peas have got to be wrassled out. So why bother?
Because the taste is unique: earthy, sweet and nutty. They cook up creamy, almost velvety, and mellow. Dried, they are the familiar black-eyed pea, but the taste, and look, of the fresh peas is very different.
Fresh crowders need only be steamed about 10 minutes to retain their shape and a hint of light green color. Use cooked peas as a base for a chopped salad. I like to toss them with an herbed vinaigrette dressing, then top with fresh chopped tomatoes, sweet onion and chopped red pepper. Add just a touch of sea salt, fresh black pepper and some grated Parmesan cheese. Or substitute lightly steamed crowder peas for garbanzos to twist the falafel. I think I might have Southern blood, because sometimes I’ll fix crowders with grits, ripe red tomatoes dipped in cornmeal and fried, and a side of stewed okra.
Darlene Petro likes crowder peas both for their nutritional value and for the taste. “Add a little hickory-smoked ham, some onions and cook like you would a pot of beans,” she said. “Then you fix a big pot of greens, serve it with cornbread, and you’ve got a good meal with lots of protein. Tastes great and it’s cheap.” Petro learned to cook field peas, as she calls them, from her mother, who was one of 18 children. “People didn’t have money back in the Depression. Crowder peas were on the menu, brown beans and green beans cooked with ham and potatoes. All flavored with fatback, or ham if you had it.”
If you want to try crowder peas already picked, visit Alice and Lenard Chartrand at Soulard Farmers’ Marketthis month. “Lenard planted cowpeas early in July, but the weather has been so cool, I don’t know when we will have them. August, usually, but beans need hot weather.” Ask Alice Chartrand how best to shuck crowder peas, and she’ll tell you there is no good way. “We’ve got a tabletop gadget, [it’s] supposed to make it easier, but it’s hard; [it’s] just part of it.”
If picking your own appeals, travel out to Prouhet Farm in Bridgeton early to mid-September. “Not very many farmers are growing crowder peas in the North. You’ve got to get down closer to Mississippi, usually,” said farmer Billy Prouhet. “We do pick-your-own greens, limas, okra, green beans and crowder peas. For us, crowders are a fall crop, coming in September and October. People call, asking for them, all the time. We have six acres under cultivation, and they pick every last one.”
Prouhet suggests using fresh-picked crowders within two to three days to avoid deterioration and mold. When I asked how he liked them best, Prouhet admitted he hasn’t eaten any. “I’m so busy growing them I don’t take time for eating them,” he said.
A case of the shoemaker’s children having no shoes. Well, more crowders for us. Put on your shopping shoes and try this seasonal bean.
This article appears in Aug 1-31, 2008.