If you celebrate the New Year anywhere near the South, you're probably going to be enjoying black-eyed peas in some form. If you don't already know, you're taking part in a tradition dating back to the War Between The States days. Once considered only suitable for livestock fodder and food for slaves, fields of black-eyed peas, fortunately, were ignored by Gen. Sherman's troops as they stormed the South, and became a food staple for surviving Confederates.
More @ Carolina Country
I know that I eat 'em. But then... we had turnip greens, w/pot liquor. Hot water corn bread, and real butter beans. (Not those big lima's) I love boiled peanuts too! Those small Virginia peanuts. Daughters get them to me every once in a while. Remember when you could get them on the side of the road. In a paper bag. For 5 cents! Damn, I miss those days. I'm gettin a hoot out of this site!
ReplyDeleteRemember when you could get them on the side of the road. In a paper bag. For 5 cents!
DeleteYou can still see them sometimes on the side of the road, but needless to say they aren't 5 cents.:) Reminds me of the small Coke bottles in the cooler for 5 cents.
It is a big tradition here in north Alabama where I live. Nearly everyone will eat some black-eyed-peas, greens (turnip or collard), and hog jowl for the traditional "New Years Day" meal. The lore is that the peas will bring good luck and the greens will make one prosper (money). I'm not sure how the pig got in there. LOL.
ReplyDeleteOriginal Smithfield ham goes with it well, though I usually eat that separate, but slice off some of the fat to flavor the peas.
DeleteOk, time to head off to the grocery store for a pork loin or a Boston butt and some
ReplyDeletegreen onions. I've got plenty of rice and black eyed peas in my ....ummmm.... "pantry".
:)Enjoy!
DeleteA couple sells boiled green peanuts at the swapmeet in Morehead every weekend and everytime I go I get them. They are sooo good. Had them for the first time a few months back.
ReplyDeleteHow much are they there?
Delete$3 for a small bag, $5 for lg
DeleteEating blackeyed peas, turnip greens or collards on New Years Day has never brought me anymore money during the new year but, they sure are good anytime !
ReplyDeleteYes, Sir! :)
DeleteHey Brock, thanks for the dedication! I'm getting my hands on some of the Smithfield ham, and I'll let you know how the family likes it!
ReplyDeleteThanks and by the way, I don't use the glaze, but that's just because we didn't in our family growing up, though I am sure it's good. Not going to make any difference anyway once you start slicing away. Which one did you get?
DeleteI like a glaze on a ham, but I like ham gravy better so I always go with the gravy. ;) It seems the glazing will make the drippings a bit sweet and I like sweet, but not in gravy!
DeleteI don't have to go to the store to get black eyed peas, I have a five gallon bucket full of them in the pantry, along with my pintos, pinks, small northerns, peas, and baby limas, ;) ....and a home raised ham in the freezer, but I'll probably just use a ham hock seeing as it's just the husband and I to eat them.
Happy New Year y'all!
Miss Violet
You have been reported to the authorities for hoarding! :) Happy New Year and I'll be rite' over........:)
DeleteTradition for us PA Dutch and Germans is pork loin (muslims cut your heart out) sauerkraut, and mashed taterz. A good luck meal. I get extra luck by putting the kraut on top of the mashed potatoes.
ReplyDeleteSounds good.:)
DeleteForget Smithfield ham....fresh wild pig ham from the smoker with an added hock for the peas. Cornbread, greens & fried taters to round it out.
ReplyDelete:) Yum. I shouldn't just say Smithfield hams, because these days they sell many kinds, but the dry cured, salty original country hams which must be sliced paper thin to bring out the flavor. I only use the fat and some of the dark portions that I don't particularly like to flavor them.
DeleteI have heard other versions of the origin of black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. They certainly do come from West Africa, and Northeastern Brazil has a lot of them, usually served freshly shelled in restaurants.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, the peas, and the hog maws, cheapest cut on the pig, other than the guts, would be what poor people, slave or free, ate. If you eat this poor-folks food, the B**l s**t Angel stops by on the first day of the year, he won't afflict you or your household, because there is no arrogance of wealth on display there. Or, if you celebrate the new year with good fellowship and cheap food, you will inevitably have a lucky year, because if you can be happy with nothing, you can be happy with anything. Using my imagination to fill in some blanks in history, I can see a slave, last one off the ship, absolutely in the dark about his fate in the new country. Back home, he may have been a slave, but with his slave family around him. There would be women, and in Africa, women and their pots are the symbol for food.So, he sees a few dried peas and scoops them up, rolled in his pants cuffs? Somehow, he brought the peas with him, and, when he gets to the plantation or farm where he will live, and not all the peas eaten, he plants them.All the other slaves are delighted when the peas make, with food from home. There is so much propaganda surrounding slavery that people often forget that slaves were real people, sometimes very cruelly treated, sometimes less so, but human, and we humans like to be happy. Comfort food from home, like black-eyes, or peanuts, eases the pain of separation from kin and friend.I would not be at all surprised to learn that, for the first generations of slaves in the New World, that comfort-food aspect played a part in the mystique of the black-eye and the peanut. I certainly do not want to soften the memory of slavery, but it is very important that we understand the slaves as people, who, in their hearts, are like us, regardless of our official color. That may make the image of slavery even more brutal, but we also learn valuable lessons from these most humble of God's children.
As to the pea, I make a cassoulet of mine, with only about one quarter black-eye, three quarters cream peas, like a blind black-eye, with a milder taste, and not grown in so much of the South any more, it seems. I put the dried black-eyes in the crockpot on New Year's Eve, with the ham bone from Christmas, and the frozen turkey carcass from Thanksgiving, cooked overnight. I pick out all the bones, add the cream peas, frozen or canned, because I live in a neighborhood run by Democrats, so I can't have a vegetable garden. I add the bay leaf, thyme, basil and garlic, cook for another hour in the crock, then bake for an hour in my cassoulet pan, or a large Corrinng ware pan. After that, someone else will wash up. My only task is to break up the fights for the last bits.
We make corn bread as pancakes, so the crust holds it all together, removing the temptation to add flour to the batter. Although we do grow a great deal of rice in Texas, the New Year tradition came here from the "Old clu8ntry" Georgia, in our case, sl cornbread it is, and green tomato relish on the peas.
Michael Adams
sometimes very cruelly treated, sometimes less so,
Delete& sometimes not at all and sometimes like family.
==============
because I live in a neighborhood run by Democrats, so I can't have a vegetable garden.
Hilarious!@
===========
Thanks for the informative post and Happy New Year to all!
My, that looks good! Happy New Year to you and yours! Today I make my favoritet family treat - 5 layer lasagna. You do NOT walk away from the table hungry!
ReplyDeleteI bet!:) Happy New Year to you also!
ReplyDeleteOnly problem wih all this talk about Smithfield hams is they are now owned by the Heathen Chinee. So, no more for me, but not so bad because I raise my own. Up he backside of the Demonthugs.
ReplyDeleteWinston.
Any good dry cured, salty country ham will do,
Delete