A classic thread for New Year’s Eve.
Southern classic.......pork and peas for good luck in the New Year.
Southern food with a long history has crossed several cultures and continents.
by Renee Studebaker
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 5:52 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009
Published: 12:40 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 29, 2009
From the earliest records mentioning black-eyed peas, it seems that this humble pea, indigenous to Africa or the Far East -- or both, depending on your historical reference -- was intent on traveling the world. The Babylonian Talmud, compiled around the year 500, instructs Hebrews to include several foods on their tables in the New Year for good luck; among them are black-eyed peas. By the 1700s, black-eyed peas (aka cowpeas and Southern peas) had made their way to the West Indies and to America on the ships of slave traders.
According to one oft-repeated story, the black-eyed pea saved many Confederate soldiers and civilians from starvation. Here's how it goes:
When Union troops were stealing livestock and burning food crops in and around Vicksburg, they left behind stores of dried black-eyed peas, apparently because they thought the peas were just feed for cattle, which they had also stolen. Another story kicks the legend up a notch: A ragtag team of starving Confederate soldiers awoke one morning to find themselves just a stone's throw from a field of black-eyed pea vines covered in dried pea pods, ready to harvest. They picked them and they feasted. It was New Year's Day.
Every year, on New Year's Day, many thousands of people, mostly Southerners, eat at least a few black-eyed peas in hopes that the legumes will bring them good luck and prosperity in the coming year.....
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A quick and totally unscientific survey in my immediate work area revealed that seven out of 10 of my co-workers who admit to eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day say the peas are bland, mushy and generally not very appetizing. But they eat them anyway, for various reasons, including "my mother-in-law makes me......"