Okra and rice cooked together with a little smoked pork — the lesser-known sister dish to Hoppin' John, where okra takes the place of the peas.
Hoppin' John gets the New Year's fame; Limpin' Susan is its quieter Gullah Geechee sister, the okra-and-rice dish that fed the Lowcountry just as faithfully but never left the family table for the cookbooks. Naming it is recovering it.
Limpin' Susan is okra-and-rice in its purest form, and the okra is the whole point — its soluble fiber slows glucose absorption and pulls bile acids to lower cholesterol, while the rice supplies the energy. Make it on parboiled or red rice and keep the okra ratio high and this is a quietly therapeutic one-pot. Where Hoppin' John leans on the black-eyed pea for protein, Limpin' Susan leans on okra for fiber; pair it with a pea or bean dish or a piece of fish to round out the protein. The cook-and-cool resistant-starch trick applies here too if blood sugar is a concern.
Fry a little bacon or smoked pork, sweat onion, add sliced okra and cook off the mucilage, then add rice and water or stock and steam until the rice is dry and tender. Traditionally drier and simpler than okra perloo — fewer aromatics, okra and rice front and center. A little vinegar or hot pepper at the table is classic.
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