The good-luck foods of the New Year

 

Photo by Jordan Alter Burton

Before I get to the good-luck foods of the New Year, I want to say a word about eggnog. I drank a lot of eggnog over the holiday and relished every drop of it. Only prudence and caution confined me to one small glass at a time, but I had eggnog for breakfast every morning in Santa Fe. What a marvelous way to begin the day! My friend, Susan Tweit, brought a big jar of eggnog with rum for the nog when she visited us on Christmas Eve, and Christian, coveting both the eggnog and the container, brought the remaining little bit home with us. So I’ve had it twice for breakfast in the cottage. I did have the good sense to turn it down Sunday morning before we went to church. But this morning, Christian and I split the last little bit and discussed getting more. If anything is going to bring a good year, surely that will do it.

This afternoon, neighbors brought Jordan a cup of Tom and Jerry, a hot drink I always associate with New Year’s. A Tom and Jerry is much like eggnog—egg whites, rum, brandy, spices, and butter. But it’s served warm and is, to my mind, more lethal than cool eggnog. Once again, reason prevailed. I took a sip and said no, thank you. Jordan drank the whole cup and took a nap. Needless to say, I took a nap even without the Tom and Jerry.

The primary traditional food on my mind tonight is black-eyed peas, because I fixed a big pot yesterday and let them sit in the fridge overnight to gather flavors. Then today I cooked them more, cooking down the excess liquid and getting the peas to just the right stage of mushy. After fifty-five years, I consider myself pretty much a Texan (barring some of the things that implies today), but there are parts of me that had a hard time leaving a northern, Chicago background behind. I was in Texas a lot of years before I consented to try black-eyed peas. Then I tried to disguise them, burying them in the rice and tomatoes of Hoppin’ John. But in recent years I’ve come to appreciate the humble pea.

In  Hoppin’ Uncle John, the peas are cooked with a ham hock, onion, celery, garlic, diced tomatoes and served over rice. Tonight I made Hoppin’ John but without the tomatoes (in deference to Christian). I can’t see there’s much difference between plain peas they way we cook them and Hoppin’ John. Even a plain pot of peas gets ham or salt pork or bacon or ham hock along with onions, celery, and garlic. Tonight, everybody else ate theirs with rice, but I had mine plain. So good. Can you believe I actually relish them now?

Probably my study of Helen Corbitt’s life and work had something to do with this. Texas caviar, her iconic dish, is simply marinated black-eyed peas The story is that after three weeks in Texas, at the university in Austin, she was challenged to prepare a banquet menu using nothing but Texas products She invented what she called marinated black-eyed peas. I first remember eating that at the Cowgirl Hall of Fame restaurant in Santa Fe years ago (no relation to the museum in Fort Worth). Today, folks elaborate on Corbitt’s idea and add corn, tomatoes, black beans, avocado. I remain a purist and follow Corbitt’s original recipe.

Of course, if you’re going to have black-eyed peas for luck, you must have greens and cornbread. I draw the Texas line at turnip greens—can’t, won’t do them. But I had leftover creamed spinach tonight. Surely that counts. As for cornbread, I did have that in the Chicago home of my childhood, but my mom was an avid follower of 1950s nutritionist Adelle Davis, which led her to the cookbooks from the Rodale Foundation, a Pennsylvania organic farming non-profit. I remember putting Brewer’s yeast and honey in cornbread. What I fixed today was far different, and like eggnog, most decadent. It’s a recipe that starts with two boxes of Jiffy cornbread mix and adds ingredients, such as two sticks of butter, a cup of sugar, a cup of sour cream—need I say more? It was delicious.

So there we are, starting off the New Year with foods that bring us luck—or so we hope. Let’s hope that 2024 will behave much better than 2023, but we’ve had the lucky foods just in case. You?

 

Eating for good luck

2020 is one day old. How’s it treating you so far? My year got off to a rocky start, I think because I was so smug about being in bed asleep at midnight. I was in bed, all right, but I could not fall asleep—something that rarely happens to me. I hope it’s not an omen. Then this morning I unpacked my new remote keyboard but could not find the USB connector anywhere—I spent far too long sifting and sorting through packing materials, sure that I’d missed it because it’s so small. Finally I called Amazon and got instant help. The manufacturers are so clever these days—it was inside the battery compartment of the mouse. Who knew? Now it works fine.

But the day and the year got a lot better when I went to early afternoon dinner at the home of neighbors Mary and Joe. A lavish spread, starting with cheese and vegetables with dip and herring for appetizers. I can’t resist herring, but these were large pieces. Turns out they were rollmops—herring rolled around a pickle. Supposed to bring good luck for the year.

There had been some consternation about black-eyed peas in my family. When I first moved to Texas, I confronted the tradition of black-eyed peas and ham on New Year’s Day. I didn’t think I liked those peas—I was from the North, you know—but one year I found a recipe I thought my family would eat—Hoppin’ John. I’m sure you know, but just in case: it’s a stew of black-eyed peas, ham, rice, sometimes tomato. Today another guest had brought some, so I      got double good luck—rollmops and peas. Fast forward fifty-some years, and my family and I are just like most Texans—we want our black-eyed peas on January 1.

Many cultures have traditions about lucky foods you eat on New Year’s Day. The black-eyed peas are obviously from the American South, often served with collard greens. And some folks boil a silver dollar in with them—I think I draw the line at that. Another southern food eaten for luck is cornbread. Pork, or ham, is regarded as lucky in the South, as well as in many cultures.

Mary tells me that rollmops for luck were served in her childhood home, which was heavily influenced by German traditions and foods. In Spain, they eat grapes; in Italy, lentils. Some cultures consider round foods good luck, sort of as in “coming full circle.” Or maybe because they’re shaped like coins. In Japan, they eat soba noodles at midnight December 31 and call it toshi-koshi, “from one year to another.”

Today sumptuous dinner was the German dinner of Mary’s childhood: roast pork loin with gravy, applesauce, sauerkraut, tiny purple potatoes, peas and mushrooms, a butter lettuce salad, and multigrain bread. Dessert was crème brulee. If that menu is an omen of the year to come, I’ll take it gladly. Everything was absolutely delicious.

I am not used to that big a meal any time of day but especially not mid-afternoon. When I cam home, about 4:30, I was uncertain what to do with the rest of my day. So what I’ve done is nothing constructive—my ambition seemed to have fled. I’ve got to stop taking everything about today as an omen for the new year, because in general I’m enthusiastic about several projects on my desk for coming days.

I hope each and every one of you had a safe and sane New Year’s Eve, a happy day today with whatever you think brings you luck. Out with the old and in with the new—may you be happy the whole year through. And may we take back our country and heal the divisions that tear us apart.