Hog Jowl & Black Eyed Peas

Happy New Year Ya’ll!

Did y’uns eat hog jowl and black eyed peas on New Year’s Day?  Now this is one of those meals that I’m careful not to say I won’t eat, but I’m praising the Lord that I don’t have to.  This along with collards, turnip or mustard greens.

But enough about my taste in foods. 

Hog jowl and black eyed peas are the traditional meal for New Year’s Day because it’s supposed to bring good luck in the new year.  It seems the folks of old felt lucky to have this meal on new year’s day and hoped for similar luck throughout the year.

Hog killin’ time on the mountain starts just after the first frost so meat killed in the last month or two and salted down would be just about right for frying at the first of January.  And of course black eyed peas were harvested late in the summer and dried so if you could store them in a good dry place they would be good throughout the winter.

By January, the taste of fresh vegetables is dimming and sallet greens won’t be up for two or three more months.  Families who didn’t have the luxury of refrigeration or nearby supermarkets were making do with cornbread and fried side meat.  Leather britches (dried green beans) and potatoes were on the table almost every day. Of course there would still be plenty of dried apples in the attic (don’t want them in the root cellar for risk of dampness) that could be cooked down and fried into pies or spread over a stack cake. 

The flavors on our tables have radically changed in the last fifty years and some of the foods we have long been known for are almost foreign to our younger pallets.  Even if I don’t particularly enjoy hog jowl and black eyed peas there is a comfort in this age old tradition.