Don’t you hate it when you find out something you had believed in your whole life wasn’t true?
I hate to burst your bubble, but all of you who ate pork and sauerkraut for New Year’s for good luck — you ate the wrong thing.
Not being a pork and sauerkraut fan, this does not affect me. I think all sauerkraut does is make it impossible, because of certain sound effects, for you to be around other people.
This is a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition that has been passed around for years.
So what is the true food that brings you good luck for the following year? If you ask any Southerner, he will tell you, “It’s black-eyed peas.”
This is not going to make a big difference in my life because I don’t care for either of them. I don’t understand why all the good-luck food can’t be something edible, like popcorn or steaks. I think I will start a tradition that ham, mashed potatoes and gravy will bring good luck.
The story as to how black-eyed peas became the good-luck thing started during the Civil War. When Sherman was marching through Georgia, his men destroyed all the crops so the Southerners didn’t have any food. The only thing his men didn’t destroy was the black-eyed peas and field corn because they thought they were for the animals. No Northerner ate black-eyed peas, but that was how the people in Georgia survived during the war.
Now, you just can’t eat one pea and think you will have luck the whole year. The simple math is, one pea per day of good luck. Yes, you have to eat 365 black-eyed peas to have luck the whole year — and 366 on Leap Year.
To add to the meal, you also will need some Georgia collard greens cooked with ham hocks.
Since I was not sure what a ham hock was, I interviewed my wife while she was half asleep on the couch. She grumpily said, “I don’t know!” That was the end of the interview.
Ham hocks are the lower portion of a hog’s hind leg. This really sounds appetizing. I can’t wait until next New Year’s Day.
A dish you may want to prepare for New Year’s Day is called “Hoppin’ John.” It consists of rice, salt pork and black-eyed peas. If you don’t die Jan. 2 from the meal, you should have good luck the rest of the year.
Just to prove it works, I did not have black-eyed peas for New Year’s. Instead, I had roast beef. The result is, I have had to shovel snow several times every day since.
If you’re growing black-eyed peas, they should not be planted until after Memorial Day. They love heat and can take drought. I would recommend an early variety that matures in 60 to 70 days.
A problem you may have is that deer and rabbits also love the leaves of the plant. They are very nutritious and can be eaten by humans, too.
The black-eyed peas were brought to America from Africa and Asia and are a popular soul food.
The peas are cream colored with a black eye. There is also a pink-eyed pea, which has a pink eye. I think I had that myself when I was a kid.
The botanical name is Vigna unguiculata. They also are known as Southern Peas and Cowpeas. Of course, the truth is, they aren’t a pea at all, they are a bean.
What this means is, you may still want to avoid being around people after eating them. You can only blame so much on Zambelli testing his fireworks.
Make your space a green space.
(Gary Church is the gardening columnist for the New Castle News.)
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GARY CHURCH: Black-eyed peas? Good luck with that!
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