“Don’t forget the cornbread, greens and hog jowls to go with those peas.”
That’s what we are having. Cheating a little on the greens and having brussels sprouts, but close enough to cabbage, I think.
My mother always said that tradition started in the South because if you were poor in the South and got up on New Years Day about all you would find to eat would be some dried black eyed peas, a chunk of salt pork, some cornmeal and some kind of leftover greens in the garden.
Yeah, I’m in South Alabama, right where the highlands/piney woods meet the Blackbelt.
This is the meal making method for both poor whites and/or black folk.
We only get the parts of the hog and fowl the rich don’t want. Only thing is whites won’t eat chitlins never!
Backs, jowls, wings (although everyone wants these nowadays, so the price is through the roof), hocks, and pig feet.