Black-eyed Peas for New Year's Day

Eating out at restaurants is fun and convenient, but on New Year’s Day, don’t forget to eat your black-eyed peas. As tradition holds, if you eat cornbread on New Year’s Day, the cornbread will bring golden opportunities in the new year. If you eat collard greens on New Year’s Day with your black eyed peas, money will abound. If you eat the black-eyed peas with stewed tomatoes, the tomatoes will grant one good health in the New Year. And the black-eyed peas themselves, signify good luck and good fortune will abound in the New Year.

To ensure the bountiful prosperity for every day of the New Year with the black-eyed peas tradition, some folks say it is wise to eat at least 365 black-eyed peas - one pea for each day of the New Year. Although, in actuality, black-eyed peas are considered to be a legume or bean. And one that has been cultivated in China and India since prehistoric times. With even the ancient Greeks and Romans indulging in a black-eyed pea or two. Although, the ancient Romans thought black-eyed peas contained the souls of the dead.

Native to West Africa, black-eyed peas were brought to the United States by those held in involuntary servitude as far back as over three-hundred years ago. And the famous botanist, scientist, and inventor, George Washington Carver, encouraged the planting of crops of black-eyed peas as black-eyed peas add nitrogen to the soil and have an extremely high nutritional value.

While customs vary across the nation for New Year’s with cabbage being the preferred dish to signify wealth in areas across the MidWest. And wearing yellow underwear on New Year’s Eve being the wealth bringing tradition internationally such as in Mexico. The tradition of eating black-eyed peas in Alabama and across the Southern part of the United States is thought to originate to the War Between the States.

As legend has it, when Sherman went on his pyromaniac march to the sea, his Union soldiers destroyed everything in their path . . . except for the black-eyed peas. As they were considered to be lowly animal food and not worth the effort of destroying. With the black-eyed peas being among the only foods that were left to eat, the Southerners then considered them to be lucky.

Those who fall prey to doubting the legend and the efficacy of the New Year’s Day tradition of eating black-eyed peas, can at least take solace in the fact that black-eyed peas are extremely nutritious. Being an excellent source of folate, thiamine, iron, magnesium, manganese phosphorus, and zinc, black-eyed peas are also high in fiber and protein. Therefore, at the very least, one can start out the New Year by eating healthily via black-eyed peas. Happy New Year!