Black-eyed pea

The black-eyed pea is the seed of the cowpea plant, a vigorous annual that is bush-like or climbing, with long slender pods that hang down. Each pod contains about eight to twelve kidney-shaped seeds.

The seeds are small, cream to pale tan, with a distinctive black or dark ring around the point where the seed attached to the pod, which looks like an eye. Cooked, they are creamy, with an earthy, slightly sweet flavour and a tender but not mushy texture.

They are sold dried, canned, frozen and fresh, and as flour for fritters. Young pods and leaves are also eaten in parts of Africa and Asia.

The cowpea was domesticated in sub-Saharan Africa, probably in West Africa, several thousand years ago, from wild relatives. It is one of the oldest crops of the continent and spread to India, the Mediterranean and later the Americas.

The black-eyed pea is one of several cowpea types, along with other types such as the yardlong bean, which is sold as the long green pod.

The name cowpea probably reflects its use as livestock fodder in the American South. The Latin Vigna honours the 17th-century Italian botanist Domenico Vigna, and unguiculata means with a small claw, referring to the shape of the petals.

Cowpeas have been grown in Africa for millennia, and they have been a staple that thrives in poor soils and heat, and which fixes nitrogen for the cereals planted after them. They reached India in antiquity and were known in ancient Greece and Rome.

The black-eyed pea was brought to the Americas, including the Caribbean and the southern United States, by enslaved Africans in the 17th and 18th centuries, and it became part of Southern and Gullah Geechee cooking. Dishes such as Hoppin' John, rice and peas cooked for New Year's Day for luck, grew out of that tradition. Some sources say eating them gained a resonance in the South during the Civil War, when they were among foods that survived raiding armies.

Brazilian acaraje, a fritter made from cowpea paste and fried in palm oil, comes from Yoruba culture carried with the slave trade.

Today Nigeria is the world's largest producer, and the crop is of central importance to food security in the Sahel.

Black-eyed peas are simmered with ham hocks and greens, in the Southern American dish Hoppin' John, cooked in salads and soups, or fried in Nigerian akara and Brazilian acaraje. In India, they are made into lobia curry.

Fresh pods and green seeds can be cooked as a vegetable, and young leaves are eaten as greens in East and Southern Africa.

Dried peas cook faster than many other beans and need little or no soaking. The flour is used for fritters and steamed puddings such as moin-moin.

Black-eyed peas are a good source of plant protein, fibre and folate, along with iron, potassium and manganese. As with other pulses, regular intake is associated with better cholesterol levels and blood sugar control in population studies, and their slowly digested starch gives a moderate glycaemic response.

Evidence specific to black-eyed peas is limited but consistent with the broader legume literature.