In a traditional Southern family, things like roses for Mother’s Day, barbecue on the Fourth of July, the Thanksgiving return, Jack Daniel’s to enjoy football more, church on Christmas Eve, and food on New Year’s Day are always the same.
Richard Lewis was born in Mississippi and graduated from LSU. He now lives in Virginia and knows Southern food tastes like a country preacher knows the Bible. With New Year’s Day coming up soon, Richard’s knowledge of Southern food habits is very helpful.
“The most overlooked and underrated meal of the Southern holiday feasts is without a doubt the New Year’s Day dinner,” he told me. People say that eating it will bring them happiness, good health, and good fortune for the next twelve months, so it might be the most important meal of the year.
“The New Year’s luck-o-matic menu includes three essentials: black-eyed peas, collard greens, and cornbread. Far more humble than the Thanksgiving turkey or Christmas ham,” he said. This Southern trio of tasty treats is both tasty and symbolic in a deeper way. In traditional art, the peas have come to stand for cash. The greens stand for money because they are green. The cornbread is yellow and stands for gold. People say that cash doesn’t grow on trees, but in the South on New Year’s Day, it does grow on plants and stalks.
As a retired tourism executive from Virginia, Lewis draws on his deep understanding of Southern culture. He said, “One of the best things about the South is that many of its best things became popular because people were poor.” Peas can grow in poor dirt, which is why they become the main food in rural areas. People who live on the coast of the Carolinas and Georgia may cook peas with rice, veggies, and pork. The food that was made is still a New Year’s favorite and is known as Hoppin’ John.
Lewis says that you shouldn’t forget about collards, which can “be grown in a truck patch for market or in the kitchen garden.” When seasoned with a smokey ham hock, the dish is full of porky goodness and has made its way from huts in the woods to some of the best restaurants in the South.
Lewis says that peas and greens go well with good Southern coarse-ground cornbread, not the sweet, cake-like kind that is made elsewhere. “Lewis also said, “Martha White has been ready for more than 100 years if the Hoppin’ needs to be soaked.” And broken cornbread and collard greens pot liquor go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Richard Lewis told me about some traditions I didn’t know about. He said, “In some homes, coins, usually dimes, are put in the peas while they cook.” Some families really go for it and put a lot of small bills in the pea pot. People who dig for gold out of greed should be ready to eat all the peas that come up with it. The coins will go back into the pot if that doesn’t happen.
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If you rub the magic cast-iron pot on New Year’s Day, Richard Lewis says, “a magic genie named Bubba will pop out and spread the promise of good luck in the coming year.” After you eat a big helping, you should go fishing. Get some raffle tickets. You can take that bet to the bank.