Black Eyed Peas

[littlemissmartypants]

In the Southern United States, eating black-eyed peas or Hoppin' John (a traditional soul food) on New Year's Day is thought to bring prosperity in the new year.[4] The peas are typically cooked with a pork product for flavoring (such as bacon, fatback, ham bones, or hog jowls) and diced onion, and served with a hot chili sauce or a pepper-flavored vinegar. The traditional meal also includes collard, turnip, or mustard greens, and ham. The peas, since they swell when cooked, symbolize prosperity; the greens symbolize money; the pork, because pigs root forward when foraging, represents positive motion.[5] Cornbread, which represents gold, also often accompanies this meal.[citation needed]

There are several legends as to the origin of this custom. Two popular explanations for the South’s association with peas and good luck dates back to the American Civil War. The first is associated with General William T. Sherman’s march of the Union Army to the sea, during which they pillaged the Confederates' food supplies. Stories say peas and salted pork were said to have been left untouched, because of the belief that they were animal food unfit for human consumption. Southerners considered themselves lucky to be left with some supplies to help them survive the winter, and black-eyed peas evolved into a representation of good luck. One challenge to this legend is that General Sherman brought backup supplies with him including three days of animal feed[6] and would have been unlikely to have left even animal feed untouched. In addition, the dates of the first average frost for Atlanta and Savannah, respectively, are November 13 and November 28.[7] As Sherman's march was from November 15 to December 21, 1864, it is improbable, although possible, that the Union Army would have come across standing fields of black eyed peas as relayed in most versions of the legend. In another Southern tradition, black-eyed peas was a symbol of emancipation for African-Americans who had previously been enslaved, and who after the Civil War were officially freed on New Years Day.[8][9] Other Southern American traditions point to Jews of Ashkenazi and Sephardic ancestry in Southern cities and plantations.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-eyed_pea
[10]

Recipe here: https://addapinch.com/black-eyed-peas-recipe/

Don't forget the cornbread.

Happy New Year, North Carolina Group.

♡lmsp

[akraven]

1. Mine are already on, with a smoked ham hock -

the cornbread can wait till the morning (it's 12:26 a.m. here). I copped some collards at the market, too! Can't get mustard or turnip greens here, darn it, unless you grow your own and turnip greens are the BEST. Have ham (from Virginia, had to order it in).

Wait till you taste my banana pudding (scratch).

Happiest of New Years to you littlemissmartypants, and enjoy your day!

[pdsimdars]

2. AND . . .

A while back I did a search to find out which peas/beans had the best protein. Black eyed peas do. I thought it would be soy beans but black eyed peas also had the balanced protein but they had more then soy. Interesting.
Oh, and you have to mix them with something else because they taste like cardboard.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. Am not from NC but saw this post on the front page and popped in -Had my Hoppin' John

within the first minute after midnight!

The past couple years, I have ditched black-eyed peas and tried other varieties - crowders the previous 2 years and some Carolina Plantation (red) cowpeas this year. Both were cooked with Carolina gold rice. OMG it's like day and night. I will never eat black-eyed peas again!

Decided to do kale greens this year (yum!) and of course the cornbread.

Happy New Year to all of you from Philly!

[JayhawkSD]

4. When I lived in Atlanta...

A bunch of us were sitting around talking at lunch one day. In the group was a coworker who had just moved there from the North, perhaps Pennsylvania or some such state. He was a nice fellow, but had trouble understanding some of the ways of the South, such as grits for instance.

Anyway, the discussion had turned to a grape arbor that one guy had built in his back yard, and he was complaining how slowly the grape vines were growing to cover it. Someone suggested he plant Kudzu, and it would be covered in a couple of weeks. That was considered pretty funny until someone realized that he was serious, at which point a lynching party was considered.

The conversation went on about the evils of Kudzu, and how Kudzu might be prevented from burying the entire state, until the guy from "up north" came out with, "Well hell, I would have thought you people would have figured out how to boil it and eat it by now."