Derald wrote:
songbird wrote:

thanks for the note Derald, next time
save me a bounce and put a real e-mail
addr on there. no, i don't mind the
e-mail at all, but consider it kinda
strange to get an invalid one in return.


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.

i always thought it was blackeyed peas and collard
greens for good luck?


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.

ok, so i'm getting educated here as i had no
idea there were more than one kind of cowpeas.

i've eaten plenty of blackeyed peas and i don't
consider them bland. they have a pretty distinctive
flavor.

but it also sounds like you're saying i could
eat them at the green pod stage too (not just the
other kind of cowpeas you've mentioned)?


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.

ok, thanks, i'll have to check 'em out sometime
when i'm back on-line.


songbird