{"id":151568,"date":"2014-02-07T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gracious-khorana.45-76-20-142.plesk.page\/localmex12014x102x1black-eyed-pea-hummus-htmlx1\/"},"modified":"2023-06-26T17:12:02","modified_gmt":"2023-06-26T17:12:02","slug":"black-eyed-pea-hummus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/localmilkblog.com\/2014\/02\/black-eyed-pea-hummus.html","title":{"rendered":"Black Eyed Pea \u201cHummus\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I wanted to run today. I wanted to run so badly. Run in sneakers. Not my usual bi-seasonal existential crisis sort of run. I mean, like, jogging. Pavement pounding, lung burning run. I wanted to listen to arguably lousy, inspirational pop music. And run. I wanted to run off my anxiety. Run off my fear. I wanted to feel strong. I wanted to build the fibers that my feeble frame is stitched of. I felt, sitting at that stop light, so determined. So fragile and invincible at the same time. I was jangling. And then it hit me\u00a0I want to run off my\u2026anger?! <\/em>This came as a surprise.\u00a0I\u2019m not usually any more of an angry person than I am a runner. I see anger, as a general rule, as a middle man emotion. Might as well just skip to being hurt & afraid and get on with it. Anger always seemed a little cowardly to me\u2014but maybe that\u2019s because I\u2019m a coward and anger scares me. Either way, I have a strong distaste for the stuff. But every now and then in my life I\u2019ve found it very cathartic, dare I say\u00a0healthy<\/em>, to just get angry. Usually that\u2019s when there\u2019s no recourse, when it\u2019s a situation where talking it out isn\u2019t an option. Like if the person has passed away, or you\u2019re completely estranged. Sometimes to say, if in front of no one other than myself or a trusted friend, this is not ok & they can seriously\u2026insert various wildly creative expletives here\u00a0<\/em>is the first step to wanting to want to forgive.<\/p>\n

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So, in a fit of fierceness & fed-upness, I thought I\u2019d take up running. But in the end I made you not-hummus-hummus instead. Bean dip. Not so fierce. And\u00a0bean dip<\/em>\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0sound very nice does it? Can we make up a word for the southern equivalent of hummus? Something exotic. I got nothing, guys. Nothing. But maybe tomorrow I\u2019ll run. After my big plans at least, which involve making two different red velvet cakes, basically the antithesis of running. Well, considering so many of my meditations, my prayers, involve\u00a0wanting to want\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0willing to will<\/em>\u2026finding the desire inside me was more than half the battle. Wanting to want health & healing is, interestingly, so often the hard part. Once you want it, you just run with it. Inspirational pun intended. Sorry.<\/p>\n

Also, this isn\u2019t hummus. I know. Words mean things. And hummus means, at the very least, that it involves garbanzo beans & tahini. This black-eyed pea dip decidedly does not. This is\u00a0hummus inspired<\/em>,\u00a0a Tennesseean translation. Or bastardization. What have you. Tangy and smoky thanks to a hit of apple cider vinegar and sweet smoked paprika, it gets its sweet, earthy complexity from fresh ground peanuts (a nod to the tahini), a glug of good olive oil, and a drizzle of local, raw honey. Being a purist, I would have, if I had a stove (which I still do not\u2026), cooked dried black-eyed peas with some mirepoix, a bouquet garni, and ham hock. I imagine properly simmered beans would make this recipe even better. That said, I used canned beans, and it was fantastic. \u00a0Initially there was no honey, and while perfectly serviceable and delicious without it, it seemed flat.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to one of my favorite points to make about seasoning: salt isn\u2019t the end all be all. I use a holy trinity of flavors in almost everything I make: salty, acidic, and sweet. The medium for these flavors varies. Sometimes I use fish sauce instead of salt. Sometimes I use sugar others honey others agave. For acid, it ranges from citrus to various vinegars. When I cook I imagine every dish has these three knobs. And I tweak them ever so slightly. I don\u2019t necessarily want my savory dishes to taste sweet\u2014I just want that baseline of warmth that a subtle dash of sugar can provide, to bring out the earthy sweetness in the black-eyed peas, paprika, and peanuts in this instance. That is what I mean when I say \u201cto taste\u201d. Slowly but surely turning the volume up on this that or the other so that everything tastes more like what it is. When you reach perfect pitch, you\u2019ll know. Because you\u2019ll go from like to love. That\u2019s one of the backbones of how I cook. Taste and tune. Balance<\/p>\n

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If I\u2019d had that oven I keep lamenting not having yet, I would have made you some homemade pita to go along with this. But as it stood all I had around was a bedraggled bulb of fennel. Which, as it turns out, made for excellent dipping. I plan to serve this with seed flat bread and pickled fennel & celery root at an event that I\u2019m helping put on with Ruthie Lindsey <\/a>and Christian of 1924<\/a>\u00a0& Travis of Manready Mercantile<\/a>,\u00a0An Evening With Kindreds<\/em>, later this month. It\u2019s just gonna be a bunch of what it sounds like, kindred spirits, makers & artists getting together to be together in Nashville, TN. And there will be a lot of southern fare from scratch if I have anything to say about it. Which I happily do! So this was recipe test number one for the event, and I\u2019m so pleased with it\u2014I get immense inspiration from translating global dishes into regional ingredients. The peanut butter and black eyed peas and apple cider vinegar\u2026it almost sounds illogical. Yet it makes so much sense.<\/p>\n

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