At 9:20 a.m. Saturday she was at the Emerson PurpleHull Pea Festival’s tiller track. She had just completed a three minute interview on statewide television on KATV, Channel 7 out of Little Rock, during which she displayed four dishes she planned to enter in the Great PurpleHull Peas & Cornbread Cook Off.
She needed to get the dishes to the school cafetorium quick. Entries would be accepted until 9:30, when judging would begin.
Samples got her dishes there in time. Good thing, too, as she wound up winning the prestigious “Best PurpleHull Peas” category of the competition.
Cooking tasty purple hull peas is a family affair for Samples. Her win wrenched the title away from her sister, Christine Snider of Springhill, La., who had won it the previous two years.
But Snider can be said to have had the ultimate win. She took first place in the “Best Original Recipe Using PurpleHull Peas” category, submitting a layered salad using freshly shelled purple hull peas. In turn, this dish also won the “Best in Show” award. Snider also won both of these categories in 2014.
In the other three divisions of the competition, Jackie Cameron of Haynesville, La., won “Best Cornbread;” Donna Snider Iverson of Springhill won “Best Cobbler;” and Elizabeth Iverson of Springhill won “Best Condiment.”
The winner in each category received $50. The “Best of Show” award was worth $100.
Festival organizers say the Great PurpleHull Peas & Cornbread Cook Off, sponsored by Big Daddy’s Hot Water Cornbread, has become one of the more popular events at the Emerson PurpleHull Pea Festival, which happens annually on the last Saturday in June.