My mother always made this for New Year's Day to have good luck for the year. I think she just liked to eat blackeyed peas. LOL
Here's a recipe with lots of details on how. BTW, I've always soaked my peas but apparently you don't have to, just cook longer. I haven't tried this.
You can use bacon or ham since jowls can be hard to find. Food Lion has them and sometimes Walmart.
https://www.tasteofsouthern.com/southern-black-eye-peas-recipe/
Ha! I've got my black-eyed peas ready to soak overnight and my ham hocks are in the fridge. I live in Wisconsin, but my clan is from the bootheel of Missouri and black-eyed-peas and ham hocks are a MUST DO on the 1st of each year for prosperity in the new year. Glad to see there are other "hillbillies" on here. :)
A hillbilly who actually lives in the hills here. LOL Actually, Mom was raised on a tobacco farm in Southside Va. No hills there but lots of good, old-fashioned southern cooking. She was famous for her homemade biscuits. She told me she made her first biscuits when she was about 4, big enough to reach the table in the kitchen to roll them out. They would never have a meal without homemade bread.