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"Around here we call them lifesavers," Billy Williams says about the humble Southern peas with their colorful 10- to 12-inch-long purple hulls. He plants eight acres of purple hulls as soon as the ground warms up, usually the first or second week in May. Like other Southern peas, also called shell beans, black-eye, pink eye, crowder and lady peas, purple hulls have a thick pod that protects them from the heat, but once the peas ripen?in about 65 days?they need to be picked within a few days. "A lot of people want to pick their own. People just go crazy for them," says Williams. He offers "you-pick-'em" by the bushel at his Emerson farm.
Like Williams, grower Melissa Johnson caters to the local fresh market and doesn't have a bit of trouble selling every pea she can produce on her five acres. "I've even shipped purple hull peas in dry ice to Indiana to a woman who ate them as a child," says Johnson. Her own 9-year-old son, Matt, "will sit down with a bowl of purple hull peas and chopped onions and crumble his cornbread in there and eat until he can't eat any more."
Indeed, people in the town of 359 cherish the local legume, which thrives in extreme southern Arkansas where warm temperatures and sandy soil are ideal, says Bill Dailey. His official title is "Pea-R Guy" for Emerson's Purple Hull Pea Festival, which has been held each June since 1990. This year's event, with its World Championship Rotary Tiller Race and the World Cup Purple Hull Pea Shelling Competition, is June 23-24. Proceeds from the heaps of peas dished up in the Emerson School cafeteria will help build a city park.
But if it's peas you're after, you'd better arrive early, Daily warns. "Last year we nearly had a fist fight break out over the last ones."
Log on to www.purplehull.com for more information.
Purple Hull Pea Salad
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4 cups lower-sodium chicken stock or vegetable stock
1 small ham hock
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Pinch of sugar
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt or to taste
1 (5-ounce) bag arugula
2 large ripe tomatoes, sliced
1 sweet onion, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons fresh basil, thinly sliced (chiffonade)
Freshly ground black pepper
2. While peas are cooling, make dressing by mixing garlic, vinegar, sugar, mustard, and pepper in deep glass bowl. Whisk in olive oil. Pour about three-fourths of the vinaigrette over drained peas and toss to combine. Add salt to taste.
3. Divide arugula among 6 salad plates, and arrange 2 or 3 tomato slices on the side. Using slotted spoon, remove peas from bowl and place equal amount on each plate. Scatter onion slices and basil strips over salad. Serve with freshly ground pepper to taste and pass remaining vinaigrette. Serves 6.
Adapted from the Emerson, Ark., PurpleHull Pea Festival website (www.purplehull.com), "Relish America's Harvest," June 2006.
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