The black-eyed pea is a small, cream-coloured seed of the cowpea (Vigna unguiculata) — an ancient African legume named for the single dark spot, or eye, that marks where each kidney- shaped bean joined its pod. Earthy, creamy and faintly sweet, it cooks soft in well under an hour without soaking and anchors a triangle of cuisines half a world apart: the American South, where Hoppin John eaten on New Years Day is said to bring luck and prosperity; West Africa, the plants homeland, where it is mashed into akara fritters and moin moin; and India, where the dried pea (lobia) simmers into curries. Cheap, drought-hardy and rich in protein, folate and fibre, it is sold dried, canned and frozen, and the same plant yields the tender green pods eaten as yardlong beans and the leaves eaten as a pot-herb.