Double Good Luck – Part 1

Many cultures from around the world have special traditions they honor for New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. We have a couple here at our house too.

My mother was from Southeast Texas. The Southern culture, no matter what state, has a time-honored tradition of eating black-eyed peas for New Year’s Day. It doesn’t matter how they are served or prepared, as long as you are eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. Eating black-eyed peas for the holiday is said to bring good luck, health and abundance. If you don’t eat your black-eyed peas you could be tempting fate for the rest of the year.

There are a few theories as to how eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day came about. One variation of the superstition says that black-eyed peas were all the enslaved people in the South had to celebrate with on the first day of January. Others say it started during the Civil War in Vicksburg, Mississippi, when the town ran out of food while under siege and the inhabitants were lucky enough to discover cow peas (a.k.a., black-eyed peas). Another legend holds that slaves ate black-eyed peas on January 1, 1863, the day the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect because they were all they had. These are only some of the reasons why black-eyed peas have been eaten in the South on every New Year’s Day since. 

I fix my black-eyed peas in different ways every year. This year, I made a black-eyed pea salad with peppers and an apricot vinaigrette. I made a lot, so we should have a lot of good luck. 🙂 I also shared some with Mike & Lauren and with our neighbors and Hanaa and Aziz, so hopefully they will have good luck too.

I soaked the black-eyed peas overnight, then simmered them for about 2 1/2 hours on New Year’s Day.

While the black-eyed peas were cooking, I cut up my peppers and onions then sauteed them a bit just to soften them up.

Then I made my vinaigrette.

Once the black-eyed peas were cooked, I rinsed and drained them, then mixed everything together. You can eat this salad cold or warm.

This particular version is vegetarian, but sometimes I add chicken or ham. There are no rules to this salad, or to the black-eyed pea traditions, just as long as you eat black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. 🙂

Happy New Year. May it be a good, happy, healthy prosperous year for everyone. ‘Til next time.