Karson Photography Blog: 12/28/08

New Years Day Traditions

A lot of my friends who are new to Charleston ask me about all of our southern culinary traditions on New Years day. So I decided to post some picture and descriptions of our traditional New Years dinner.

First we have Hoppin' John, a dish consisting of rice and beans with some onions added for flavor. The rice, which swells up while cooking symbolizes the swelling of your fortune in the year to come. The peas in the dish symbolize coins. The legumes a lot of people put in their Hoppin' John are black-eyed peas but my family uses field peas because well, that is our tradition and we leave the black-eyes for a dish all to themselves. One tradition that our family used to practice but fortunately gave up on is the hiding of a coin in the bowl of Hoppin' John. The person who finds the coin in their dish receives an extra helping of good financial luck which will be necessary to cover all of the medical bills for the treatment of hepatitis or the surgery to remove the coin from your esophagus.

Black-eyed peas are probably the most famous New Years food in the south. Each pea eaten represents a dollar. For the best chance at financial prosperity one needs to eat 365 peas on New Years day, one for each day of the year. Bacon and a ham hock are added for good luck as well as for flavor.

On New Years one should not eat chicken or turkey since they scratch backwards in the dirt, and one should not eat beef since they just stand around in the field all day, but a pig roots forward looking for its meal so if you want to be prosperous and move forward in the year to come you should eat your fill of ham and barbecue (oh yeah in the south "barbecue" is pork and cooking that is done on the grill is called well, "grilling").

Cornbread symbolizes gold and hey can't wrong with having a little gold stashed away for a rainy day.

And my favorite Greens. Greens represent green backs, folding money, cash. The greens on the left are a mix of mustard and turnips and the ones on the right are collards. They are all delicious especially when sprinkles with some white vinegar pepper sauce.