EVE RY DAY L I F E
Peas and Qs Story by SARAH CLOWER Illustration by CLIFF THOMAS
AS WE BEGIN ANOTHER NEW YEAR and mark the end of 2020 (can I get an Amen?), I started thinking about all the traditions, superstitious foods and ceremonial practices that are thought to bring us good luck in the coming 12 months. My mother has always been fastidious in her New Year’s Day traditions, and with the year we just finished, I think we need all the luck we can get. Growing up in the Deep South, blackeyed peas, hog jaw (jaw… jowl… who knows what part of the pig it was), and cornbread were an absolute must. We would gather around my mother’s dining room table with our loved ones present. My mother insisted this would guarantee we stayed close with our family all year and would insure our good health. Other family members would bring all sorts of sides, most incorporating black-eyed peas in some way — salads, relishes, jams (bacon jam with black eyed peas is actually quite delicious) and even sometimes partially dehydrated peas coated with seasoning, my personal favorite. Later in the day, we would finish off our cornbread by drowning it down in a glass of buttermilk. My mother would tell us that it all had to be eaten by sundown and held on to the belief that cornbread signified sustenance and abundance. I disliked black-eyed peas when I was younger, but my mother always insisted that my sister and I would not have good luck in the new year if we did not eat our peas. She usually only made us eat 12 little peas, signifying good luck for all 12 months. But eating 12 of anything you dislike can seem like torture. Black-eyed peas still aren’t my favorite vegetable, but I don’t dislike them like I used to. However, I’ve always been very curious as to how these humble legumes, 14
ABOUT the RIVER VALLEY ~
and other somewhat unsavory foods, became such a symbolic presence on our dining tables come January first. According to the Talmud, or Jewish religious scriptures, the practice of eating black-eyed peas on holidays for good luck dates all the way back to 500 A.D. The Jewish people brought this tradition with them to the United States when they settled in Georgia in the 1730s. The tradition of eating cornbread and salted hog jowl on New Year’s Day stems from the Civil War. Union soldiers would raid Confederate camps and take all of their rations except for the cornbread, jowl, and other pork scraps, mistaking these items for animal slop. The Confederate soldiers considered themselves lucky to be left the two things that would not perish quickly. Therefore, they became a symbol of good luck all across the South. Once I started reading about our own Southern New Year’s traditions, I wanted to know what the rest of the world did, especially this year. So I reached out to my friends in other regions of the US and
FEBRUARY 2021
abroad via Facebook, inviting them to share their good luck traditions with me. Some of these traditions sounded delicious, some… well, let’s just say I’ll be much happier to eat my black-eyed peas! “The only food related traditions on New Year’s Eve where I’m from relate to bringing a slice of bread and a lump of coal into the house just after midnight on NYE. While everyone else was holding hands and singing Old Lang Syne, I’d be bustled out of the door into the freezing night with a piece of coal and a slice of bread. Then I’d have to knock on the door and wait to be let back in, carrying the coal and bread. The idea was to invite food and warmth into your home so that you’d never be cold or hungry. Then we’d have a ‘fry up.’ This would be all of the leftover vegetables that weren’t eaten on Christmas thrown into a frying pan, mashed up together to form a kind of green substance similar to mashed potatoes, then served with leftover cold turkey. There’s also to be pickled onions served with it.” Paul Voodini, Yorkshire, England
