While most of us are still reeling from the effects of Christmas dinner, which came way too soon after that fine Thanksgiving dinner, it is now time to start thinking about another traditional meal for New Year’s Day. Around here folks say if you want to make a lot of coin during 2022, then you must put away as many black-eyed peas as you can. Black-eyed peas symbolize coins, and some cooks will even drop a dime or a quarter in the pot while they’re cooking and whoever ends up with the coin in their bowl will have the most luck in the coming year. Just add a couple of ladles of some black-eyed peas, flavored with ham hock, fatback, or sausage of course, over a bowl of steaming hot rice to create a dish that helped make the South famous: “Hoppin’ John”. My Aunt Shirley’s recipe calls for adding a couple of spoons of chow-chow on top. Good eatin’.
Of course, if you want some dollar bills to go along with all those coins, you’ll need to eat something green like collards, turnip greens, or mustard greens, it doesn’t really matter which. Some people like to substitute chard, kale, or cabbage for the greenery. Personally, I don’t think the color is quite right and the taste surely isn’t.
If you really want to get rich, that’s easy enough, just help yourself to a couple of big ol’ slabs of golden cornbread which, as we all know, symbolizes gold. If you happen to be lucky enough to have any Hoppin’ John left over, then have another bowl on January 2 when it becomes known as “Skippin’ Jenny” and even tastier than it was the day before.
