As discussed in this article:
The Historic Problem With Hoppin' John
by Robert Moss
updated Dec. 22, 2020
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The original ingredients of Hoppin' John are simple: one pound of bacon, one pint of peas, and one pint of rice. The earliest appearance in print seems to be in Sarah Rutledge's The Carolina Housewife (1847), and it's important to note that everything was cooked together in the same pot:
"First put on the peas, and when half boiled, add the bacon. When the peas are well boiled, throw in the rice, which must first be washed and gravelled. When the rice has been boiling half an hour, take the pot off the fire and put it on coals to steam, as in boiling rice alone."
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The Bacon
In the old days, salt and smoke were used to preserve the meat, which cured for weeks and then was smoked for two days or more. Today's commodity bacon is processed in less than a day: brine-injected, flash-smoked, and packed for shipping.
The Rice
The original Hoppin' John was made with the famed Carolina Gold rice, a non-aromatic long-grained variety prized for its lush and delicate flavor. But that rice was ill-suited for modern agriculture. The Lowcountry tidal swamps were too soft to support mechanical harvesters, and the rice required far too much manual labor to be viable in the post-Emancipation world. A hurricane in 1911 effectively finished off the industry in the Carolinas, and American rice production shifted to Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana, where planters grew new hybridized varieties on dry ground.
The Peas
Red cowpeas have a black-eye in the center just like their paler cousins, so they can be referred to as "red black-eyed peas." To complicate matters, in the 19th century there were any number of landrace and cross-bred varieties, often unique to just one or two family's fields. These included the Sea Island Red Pea, which was once a key rotation crop on the Sea Island just south of Charleston but whose production was abandoned when rice growing ended.
https://www.seriouseats.com/southern-hoppin-john-new-years-traditionCowpeas are easy to find dried, you have the Carolina Gold rice, so all you have to source is old fashioned bacon. I know where to get it, at the little country store up the road from here that also makes some of the best smoked sausage in the world. Unfortunately, although they will ship their sausage and smoked pork chops, they don't ship their bacon.
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