"Derald" wrote in message
...

songbird wrote:

snip

i'll be interested in hearing how long they actually
do last for you.
Well, the hardest part of that will be the remembering, LOL! Don't expect
that to get any easier....
snip

do people use the dried cowpeas for cooking too
or are they too yucko for that?
Oh, yes. They're sort of bland because they're too mature. Season them
like
any other dried legume or beans 'n rice dish, pretty much. Dried peas and
rice
is called, colloquially, "hoppin' John" and traditionally is eaten on New
Year's
Day to bring luck. Sort of a cracker version of "Moros y Christianos", a
tradional Cuban black beans and rice dish.
snip

from what i'm seeing of the blackeyed peas harvest
so far they didn't like all the rain we've had lately.
i'm not a huge fan of them anyways so i'll grow a
much smaller plot next year (as a continuing seed
source, to see how they do with a full season and
they'll be up higher so they won't get flooded).
Well, the common blackeye and pinkeye peas from the seed racks are among
the least flavorful of the cowpeas but all of them are at their best when
young.
As they mature they quickly become bland and "starchy". Various "crowder"
and
"conch" varieties are more productive and more flavorful but are difficult
to
find outside the South and becoming more difficult to find down here as
creeping
urbanization kills off the "feed 'n seed" stores that catered to local
agriculture. Online, these guys have about the best selection of cowpeas
(they
call'em "southern peas") that I've found:
http://www.southernexposure.com/index.php.
--
Derald
FL USDA zone 9a
http://www.onlineconversion.com/

Sounds like something that should be discussed in a cooking or nutrition
newsgroup to me.

Steve