Black-eyed peas, cabbage, stewed taters...New Year's Day traditonal meal

Tonight we feasted on Black-eyed peas (cooked with a silver dollar in them for prosperity), tomato relish, boiled cabbage, coleslaw, stewed taters, creamed corn, Harvard beets and cornbread.
The peas are cooked in the broth derived from boiling the Christmas ham bone. The taters are stewed in the broth from the Christmas turkey carcass cooked down in the crockpot.
That's our traditional New Year's Day meal. This year it was all local. The corn, tomato relish and beets from my garden, the rest from the local Farmers' Market. Sadly, I did use the last of the local cabbage that I had stored in the basement. My garden didn't produce any cabbage this year but the guys at the Farmers' Market had the absolute best I've ever tasted!
Tomorrow I will pick greens from the garden to add to the leftovers. We have wild dock, turnip greens, beets and Swiss chard that has survived the frosts and freezes and flourished. Also have quite a few green onions out there waiting to be harvested as garnish for the potato soup that I'll make from the left-over stewed taters.

What is your traditional meal on New Year's Day?

a reply to: diggindirt

Almost the same as you!

Pork roast, black eyed peas, cabbage with onion, garlic, and of course bacon, taters...brownies for dessert cause, you gotta have brownies sometimes..

Thats a very delicious menu there. Me and the wife decided to cook an interesting surf and turf option we have never indulged in. She made lamb chops, I made Pompano, with some homemade mashed potatoes (that we actually mashed from potatoes), and a tomato,basil, fresh mozzarella salad. I discovered I dont really care for the taste of lamb too much. The fish we had was amazing and it was our first time.

Sides and salad was good to. Overall we enjoyed it, but I will stay way from lamb if given a choice.

Thanks. I'm not big on cannibalism myself though. Besides look at them... they're so dang cute in their little costumes!

a reply to: TNMockingbird
Our desserts were the left-overs from last night's party/wake for our neighbor. Apple pie, fruit cocktail, coconut cake and our late friend's favorite---blackberry cobbler. He always said eating blackberry cobbler in the middle of winter made enduring the heat, insects and thorns to pick the berries worthwhile. I agree.

The black-eyed pea tradition as handed down by my mother-in-law, began after Sherman marched to the sea. He didn't destroy the pea fields. The peas were used to feed livestock. After his army went through there were no livestock left to feed so the people learned to eat them.
Her family was in Atlanta during the war and left journals that tell of the food shortages in Atlanta. Her family was fortunate to own a "plantation" (more of a farm actually) outside of Atlanta. They were able to move from their damaged home to the farm and grow their own food. All those items on the menu are items that could be easily grown and stored. The greens could be grown pretty much year-round, even as far north as here. The family journals refer to it as famine food. But a family of writers, artists and printers managed to feed four families and an assortment of freed slaves and the children of slaves who had gone to their freedom, leaving their children behind.


One of our neighbors is of German descent so her tradition had the cabbage preserved as sauerkraut but otherwise was the same. The kraut was cooked with sausages of course!

a reply to: diggindirt

Thats an interesting historical perspective on black eyed peas and how they ended up on the menu. They are so good it is a little bit unusual today to think they were primarily for livestock?? But then again, the majority of corn grown in the US goes to feeding livestock as well, so I suppose it is not at all that unusual??

Being single and alone, I had my blackeyed peas,organic spinach, some pork (which I really don't care for) and cornbread.

Now much of the cornbread will go to waste as I limit starches, blacked peas frozen as well as the pork.

Never thought of the cabbage. Love it and it is a staple. Next year.

Wish I were inclined to be as creative...but no one around who cares.

I want to be at your house next year should I still be around.

a reply to: AmericanRealist
The only lamb chops I've ever really liked were done by our best friend, Bubba. He did them on the grill. He learned to do them when they lived in Spain. I don't know what he did to them in prep but they were really tasty. I prefer some good old bbq'd mutton to all the other lamb I've tried.

a reply to: CraftBuilder
Ha! Now that you've reminded me....I'll put on some of their tunes. Could hurt, eh?
High energy music is just the thing when you've just stuffed yourself.

a reply to: liveandlearn
You would be more than welcome my friend. We always have more food than needed.
Our best friend's Mom "made her escape" from the "rehab" center where she's being "held" due to her fragile health. She's 94 and was tickled to feel like joining us this afternoon. She hates being dependent on others but faces it with good grace and humor. She's a hoot! She "smuggled" a few plates of food in for her friends who didn't feel up to going out and about.

That cornbread can be frozen for later. Or offered as bird food. Not wasted that way.
I can make a meal on cabbage and cornbread. Or beans and cornbread, which is more nutritious. Or peas and cornbread....do you see a pattern here? The black-eyed peas are actually beans with a good portion of protein, as I learned when I was a vegetarian. The corn/beans nutritional link I learned of when one of my students was studying the corn/beans/squash diet of native people in the Mississippi Valley.

a reply to: diggindirt

You are just as fortunate the have your 94 yr old best friends mom at your table as she is to be there.

I was planning to freeze the extra cornbread but didn't know how well it would keep. also thought of making dressing with the remainder but like I said...try not to eat much starches. Feel better about the freezing now

Thanks for the reminder...yes. cornbread and beans and cornbread and cabbage. All food from my childhood when living with my grandparents. How easy we/I forget.

As for the bird food. Our one hawk now has a partner and a child. Birds used to be here year round but not this very mild winter so far. Think the hawks had a feast