I’ve ate them faithfully every year all my life. Cabbage too.
Black eyed peas was the only crop left in the South after the Civil War, as the Yankees didn’t destroy it because they thought it was livestock food.
We didn’t have the BEP’s tradition either up in Canada.
We did have something like; first male to come through the door would have to give you a coin and you put it on top of your entry door for the year for good luck.
(Probably my Mom trying to get a quarter for a bottle of beer.)