Are Black-eyed Peas Really Peas?

Black eyed peas are a legume (Although called a pea, it is actually a bean, a mature bean). As a legume, black eyed peas serve as a vegetable and also provide protein as a bean. These peas belong to a variety of cowpea and are part of the family of beans & peas. Both peas and beans are legumes, and both have edible seeds and pods.

As legumes, they provide extremely nourishing vegetables, both to people and to the soil. They can fix nitrogen, meaning the plant takes in nitrogen from the air and bacteria living in the roots convert it to a usable plant nutrient. Because of this process, nitrogen-fixing plants improve soil quality by adding nutrients back into the soil.

Black eyed peas provide specific nutrients such as zinc, iron and amino acids typically found in the protein food group. They also offer nutrients found in the vegetable food group; fiber, folate, and potassium. Often, people classify legumes by what type of diet they consume.

For people who eat a lot of meat, they usually consider them a vegetable source. In vegetarian diets, people count legumes towards servings of protein. Regardless of dietary preferences, or where they locate them in the store, these peas serve as an excellent source of nutrition and should be included as part of a healthy diet.

Fun Facts about black-eyed peas:

Cultivated since pre-historic times in China and India, they relate to the mung bean. The ancient Greeks and Romans preferred them to chickpeas.

Enslaved West Africans brought them to the West Indies, with the earliest records in 1674.

Originally, farmers used them as food for livestock, and they became a staple of the slaves’ diet. During the Civil War, Sherman’s troops ignored black-eyed peas (field peas) and corn. Left behind in the fields, they became important food for the Confederate South.

In the American South, people consider eating black-eyed peas and greens (such as collards) on New Year’s Day good luck: the peas symbolize coins and the greens symbolize paper money.

Chefs use them as a key ingredient in Hoppin’ John (peas, rice, and pork) and include them in African-American “soul food.”

Originally, they called them mogette (French for nun). The black eye in the center of the bean (where it attaches to the pod) reminded some of a nun’s head attire.

Content for this question contributed by John Merion, resident of Milliken, Weld County, Colorado, USA