Black-Eyed Pea Spread

Dips and spreads made with ground beans, peas, nuts and seeds have been eaten by humans for many hundreds of years, and likely longer; after all, the ingredients for these dishes were all around long, long before anything like modern times, and just because they didn't have a Cuisinart food processor, didn't mean they they didn't know how to process food without such a device. By the way, Cuisinart food processors didn't go public until the early 1970s, although some electric blenders, the forerunners of actual food processors, began to make their public appearances not long after the end of World War One, and blenders gradually began to be enabled by add-on accessories to make them more like food processors, especially after World War Two.  

 

Black-eyed peas are really a type of bean originally from Africa and brought to the New World by African slaves. They are commonly eaten in several African countries like Senegal, Nigeria and some others, as well as on many of the Caribbean islands, in India and Pakistan, and they are popular in the American South and in parts of Brazil, especially in the Bahia region there. The Portuguese likely took black-eyed peas back to Portugal from Africa and also from Brazil, which was a colony of Portugal for over 300 years until the 1820s. This spread is "similar" to hummus.   

 

Serve with lightly toasted sliced baguettes, crackers, flatbread (pita or naan) and sliced vegetables. Certainly using the toaster is quick and easy, but sometimes I like to toast bread in a skillet, either dry, or with a little oil or butter. The baguette slices in the photos below were dry toasted in a skillet, as was the naan bread. The small amount of ground red pepper won't set your mouth afire; in fact, if you like "heat," you can toss a fresh chili pepper into the mixture before processing.  

 

Ingredients:

 

1 can black eyed peas (15 ounce), drained and rinsed

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil (after processing, if it's too thick add another tablespoon oil)

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 inch piece of fresh lemon zest

2 large cloves garlic

1 slice (1/4 inch thick) from a medium red or white onion

1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper (like cayenne)

1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves (needles)

1/2 to 1 teaspoon teaspoon salt (per your preference)

(optional) if you like heat, 1 fresh whole chili pepper, like serrano

(optional) you can top the finished spread with a teaspoon or two of extra virgin olive oil   

 

Put all ingredients into a food processor/blender and process until smooth.

 

 

Black-eyed pea spread with some toasted baguette and cut up Indian naan flatbread ...

WORD HISTORY:

Furnish-"Furnish" is related to "from" and "frame," both from the Germanic roots of English, and it is distantly related to many of the words with the prefix "per," like "perform" and "permit," for example, and also distantly related to words like "proceed" and "produce," with all of these distantly related words being of Latin derivation and with "produce" borrowed by English directly from Latin, and "proceed" likely borrowed from Latin, but with French influence and reinforcement, "permit" a borrowing from French, but with Latin influence, and "perform" a borrowing from French. "Furnish" goes back to Indo European "per," which had the idea of "forward, before, in front;" thus also, "main, chief, first." This had the variant form "pro" meaning "to or toward the front, forward," and this had the suffixed version of "promo," with the same meaning. This gave Old Germanic "frumjanan" meaning, "to advance, to go forward" (Germanic rendered Indo European "p" as "f"). The Germanic form was borrowed by Latin as "fromire," and then altered to "fornire," which passed to Latin-based Old French as "furnir" (meaning "to carry out, to accomplish;" thus also, "to provide, to equip," all from the idea of "going forward, advancing"), which then became "fornir," the stem of a participle form of which was "furniss/forniss." English borrowed this in the middle 1400s as the verb "fornisshen/furnysshen," meaning "to provide, to equip," and when English began to conjugate verbs differently, the "en" ending was dropped and the spelling became the modern form "furnish," and the infinitive form "to furnish." 

Portuguese Black-Eyed Peas & Tuna Salad: Salada de Feijão Frade com Atum

Black-eyed peas are really a type of bean originally from Africa and brought to the New World by African slaves. They are eaten in several African countries like Senegal, Nigeria and others, as well as on many of the Caribbean islands, and they are popular in the American South and in parts of Brazil, especially in the Bahia region of that large South American country. The Portuguese likely took black-eyed peas back to Portugal from Africa and also from Brazil, which was a colony of Portugal for over 300 years until the 1820s. 

To keep things simple, I use canned black-eyed peas, rinsed and drained, but you can certainly use dried black-eyed peas, soak them and then cook them (2/3 cup dried black-eyed peas makes about 2 cups cooked). Further, I use canned tuna in olive oil, although sometimes I buy tuna in olive oil in a jar.   

Serve as a lunch dish or as a light evening meal with some crusty bread, or serve as a side dish or appetizer for a bigger meal.

 

Ingredients (4 to 6 serving, depending upon main dish or appetizer): 

 

2 cans black-eyed peas (15 to 16 ounces each), rinsed

1/2 cup red onion, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons chopped parsley (or cilantro)

1 or 2 cans tuna in olive oil, flaked*

3 teaspoons white wine vinegar 

(optional) sugar to taste

3 tablespoons olive oil

3/4 teaspoon ground white (or black) pepper

1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon salt  

3 hard boiled eggs, chopped or cut into wedges

In a bowl, add the black-eyed peas, onion, garlic, parsley and flaked tuna; in a cup or a small bowl, add and mix the vinegar and oil (and sugar, if using), then pour it over the salad ingredients, toss to mix; season with white or black pepper and salt; top with chopped hard boiled eggs or hard boiled egg wedges.

 

* I use one 12 ounce can (it has 9 ounces of drained tuna), but you can use smaller cans, like 6 ounces with "about" 5 ounces drained; so, you should buy two for this recipe.  

 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Cologne-This word is both the name of a city and a name for a product of alcohol, water and fragrant oils. "Cologne" is closely related to "colony," a word from Latin, and it's related to "culture," another word from Latin. "Cologne" goes back to Indo European "kwel," which had the notion, "move around, to turn or turn around;" thus also, "upend, revolve." This gave Latin "colere," meaning, "to till the land" ("move and turn the land over for planting"); thus by extension, "to cultivate, to farm;" thus also by extension, "to settle, to dwell." This produced the Latin noun "colonus," meaning, "settler, farmer;" thus also, "tenant farmer." This then gave Latin the noun "colonia" meaning, "settlement, large amount of cultivated land;" thus, "an estate," then also used for "land conquered, settled and occupied by Roman soldiers beyond Rome." What became the city of "Cologne" was founded by the Germanic tribe the Ubii" a few decades before the Christian Era and it was known to the Romans as "Oppidum Ubiorum." Agrippina, the daughter of a famous Roman general, Germanicus, was born there circa 15 AD/CE, and she later was the wife of the Emperor Claudius, whom she persuaded to raise the city's status to that of a "colony;" with the name "Colonia Agrippina" being used, although often rendered as simply "Colonia," which in German became "Köln." The name for the scented product came in the 1740s from Italian born^ Giovanni Maria Farina who moved to the city of Cologne in the early 1700s (he then apparently took the German form of "Giovanni;" that being, "Johann"), and he founded a company making "cologne," known to some by its French name, "Eau de Cologne" ("Water of Cologne") 

^ Farina was born right by the border with the Italian part of Switzerland (about 8% to 8 1/2% of Swiss are Italian speaking).