Cooking recessively

I am playing with the idea of dried black-eyed peas and fresh okra. It's the sort of idea inspired by the state of the economy. We also thought about starting our own garden, but in the long run, gardens don't save much money. Black-eyed peas and fresh okra is about saving money, or at least carefully managing money, in the face of a recession, a deep recession, or an outright depression.

Recession recipes maximize bang for the buck. It must also taste good, freeze well, and fit in the available freezer space. In our case at Alta Mira, that is two standard refrigerator freezers, one in the kitchen and another on the back porch. Full-blown economy cooking calls for a full-sized freezer, bulk buys, and a willingness to eat the same thing, or set of things, for a long time. That is not what we want to do.

So I am thinking about a two-pound package of dried black-eyed peas. It's exciting, actually. I wrote a cookbook, 20 years ago, about depression cooking. I was born in 1943, so missed the Great Depression, but I grew up in my grandmother's house, and she lived through the Depression as a widow with six kids. She was already a country cook anyway, and then the Depression taught her even more about stretching it, or making a little go a long way.

I always looked forward to what she brought to the table. I also have a fond memory of lunch one day in the home of Jon Standefer's grandmother, in Weatherford, Texas. We dropped in on her by surprise, on our way to the DFW airport. She had some chicken fat, flour, and milk, and for lunch she fixed us chicken cream gravy on white bread. It was so good.

My cookbook was inspired by that kind of cooking, and based on two principles: stretching it, and how savory and good the result turns out. But that was then, when I was younger, and this is now. Sure, I'll include a few of those old recipes into the present endeavor, but now, at my age, I can't eat that much gravy. Well, I could, but I better not.

Pot liquor, though, is another thing. That may be where the okra comes in. It's worth a try. I'll soak the two pounds of black-eyes overnight. I'll dice two strips of bacon and a large onion and cook them together until the onion is starting to brown and there is a nice dark, almost-burned sheen in the bottom of the pot. To that I will add a little leftover coffee and some water, then the black-eyes in water not quite to cover. I'll slice six fresh pods of okra and add that. Okra puts out a kind of thick sweat when you slice it, and I just want to see how it interacts with the black-eyes and cooking liquid as they simmer together for an hour or so.

Then we'll eat some, freeze some. Then I'll get a pound of cheap pork shoulder and maybe make a hominy stew. Macaroni and tomatoes, maybe with some green peppers. We'll see how it goes.