Ever wonder why Southerners eat certain foods to ring in the new year? Or, what are the traditional foods that make up a Southern New Year's menu and how they came to be? Read on to find out!
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I don't know about 'round the rest of the country, but most Southerner's wouldn't dare allow the New Year to pass without eatin' some kind of pork, often a roast, sometimes a ham, a big ole mess o' black-eyed peas (or some other form of southern cowpeas) and greens of some kind, often either collard greens, turnip greens, or good ole, basic southern fried cabbage.
It's a tradition, steeped in both superstition and hope for better days ahead that we participate in the first of every year, and important enough that even people who don't particularly care for greens or black-eyed peas - such as The Cajun himself - make sure that they at least have a bite of both of 'em - though to be honest, tradition says it is best to ensure that you get at least 365 peas in your body on New Year's Day just to account for the whole year. Might as well just eat a "mess of 'em" I reckon, just to be on the safe side!
Click on the links within the post below to check out the individual recipes, but be sure to pop over to visit my super list of New Year's Eve party foods too, with appetizers, hangover helpers, brunch items and much, much more to help you ring in the new year, Southern style! Happy New Year y'all!!
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| Click here for the full range of New Year's Eve and classic New Year's Day recipes! |
Southern style collard greens or turnip greens, are pretty traditional greens for New Years. I adore them!
Here's another great greens dish option that includes some pork and adds black-eyed peas to the mix!
Pork, greens and blackeye peas - in a convenient soup, with a slow-stewed and concentrated, vitamin-enriched potlikker base. Serve with skillet cornbread to complete the meal.
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| Southern Style Turnip Greens |
While I truly do love greens of all kinds, I am also a big fan of cabbage, and the way I love it the most is simply the stewed version we southerners call fried cabbage.
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Classic southern fried cabbage.
Another cabbage favorite is this chopped cabbage, smothered down with the trinity of vegetables, ground sausage and tomatoes.
I prefer using a nicely seasoned breakfast sausage, like Jimmy Dean or Tennessee Pride, although a good Italian sausage or bratwurst will work nicely too. Just don't use a plain raw ground pork unless you bump up the seasonings. The most important thing about this dish is don't drain off the fat. Most pork sausage is pretty lean these days and you'll want the little bit of fat that you do get to season the cabbage.
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| Smothered Cabbage with Sausage and Tomato |
The New Year meal should include some kinda pig too - a full out pork roast, or just the addition of hog jowls, fatback, ham hocks, bacon or some ham chunks and a ham bone leftover from Christmas dinner, or for some, some ribs. More often, it's a combination of several of those. Pork has always been king in The South and is a big part of our lives. If you owned a pig, that one pig could feed your family for pretty much the entire new year and believe you me, we Southerners used every single inch of that pig.
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| Smothered Pork Roast |
Pork roast, slow cooked in the crockpot and simply seasoned with garlic salt, freshly cracked black pepper, Cajun seasoning, thyme and sage and topped with cream of mushroom soup, is a delicious option too!
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| Slow Cooker Pork Roast with Veggies |
For New Year's Day, pork represents health and wealth, and continued prosperity. Some say also that a pig also represents progress - and, since pigs pretty much can't just look backward without completely turning around, a pig represents forward progress. Some folks just do ribs, a roast, or pork chops or even pulled pork, but you can bet that Down South, pig is gonna show up in some form.
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| Pork Roast with Spicy Onion Pan Sauce |
Another delicious option for your New Year's greens would be this traditional Green Gumbo called Gumbo Z'herbes, a flavorful gumbo of greens. Gumbo Z'herbes is a traditional green gumbo made with multiple greens, a wide variety of meats and traditionally served on Holy Thursday before Easter. Sometimes it is prepared meatless to be served during Lent.
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| Gumbo Z'herbes |
I also know that in many areas of The South they like to eat black-eyed peas in the form of a dish called Hoppin' John. Well, down here, we pretty much just call that Black-eyed Pea Jambalaya. Speaking of jambalaya, this Creole Style Pork Chop Jambalaya is another great choice!
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| Deep South Hoppin' John - Black-eyed Pea Jambalaya |
Gotta say, that's some pretty good Hoppin' John there for sure, but I still like my black-eyed peas spooned over hot, steaming rice the most I think.
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| Southern Style Black-eyed Peas |
The tradition of black-eyed peas for Southerners is believed to have originated back during Civil War times when Sherman's soldiers raided Southern homes, taking virtually all of the food and burning the crops, but mostly ignoring the fields of black-eyed peas, because they thought them to be food for the livestock and of no value otherwise. As one of the few food sources left to sustain the people and the southern soldiers, those black-eyed peas came to represent good fortune. Makes sense to me! Want a different but delicious way to get both your black-eyed peas and greens? Try this Greens and Black-eyed Pea Soup!
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| Greens and Black-eyed Pea Soup |
The black-eyed peas represent coins - in fact, used to be that a dime would be hidden in the pot for somebody to find that was said to bring them much luck with money in the coming year. I wouldn't advise doing that these days though. The greens are present, representing paper money and cornbread, in some form, almost always served alongside, represents gold.
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| Southern Skillet Cornbread |
In The South, this combination of foods, when eaten all together, represents financial prosperity, good luck and good health in the coming new year for those who consume them on New Years Day, so we pretty much just make a meal of the combo for the whole day - just for insurance, ya know! In the United States, ball dropping is always a part of the festivities counting down toward the last seconds of the new year. If you live in the south, that's liable to be a moon pie drop.
Of course there are fireworks, sometimes parades and certainly champagne is a favorite for toasting. In Spain there is a tradition to consume 12 grapes at midnight, the sweetness of each grape to indicate what each month of the new year will bring to you. I like this! Just toss the grapes into the glass when you pass out the bubbly (or sparkling cider for the kids and non-drinkers) and at midnight everybody toasts to the new year and then eats the grapes, one on each stroke of the clock. This tradition has been picked up in the United States especially around Texas and the southwest.
Click right here for the full listing of New Year's Eve appetizers, party foods, New Year's Day Brunch items, including those ever handy hangover helpers, and of course, all the traditional New Year's Day goodies, we all love.
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