January 3, 2004

The Funnies

New Year's tradition is a gas

Ned Hickson

My wife comes from the Deep South. Because of this, we are required to eat a giant pot of black-eyed peas every New Year's Day. According to Southerners, this ensures good luck the whole year through until, coincidentally, they get stuck eating beans again the following New Year. This annual tradition was introduced to me during our first year of marriage while living in Texas. My assignment was to bring home a bag of black-eyed peas from the local Piggly-Wiggly, which is the actual name of a supermarket chain that exists only in the South. In fact, the South is full of supermarkets with really silly names like Jitney Jungle and Kroger's. Apparently, this was a final act of defiance at the end of the Civil War:

Those Yankee scoundrels may have claimed our beloved soil, but we will rise again! Until then, they will be forced to buy their groceries from stores with really stupid names! Ha!

Hey ... wait a minute ... so will we!

DAMN those Yankees.
- Jefferson Davis, 1865

Because I'd never actually seen a black-eyed pea before, my wife provided me with a description and told me to look in the dried bean section.

"Not the dried peas section?" I asked.

"No, it's a bean."

"Then why do they call it a pea?"

She had no answer for this, so I can only assume it's another one of those Southern things meant to frustrate Northerners like myself, who have a hard enough time understanding how you can improve your luck by eating something that gives you gas.

Finding black-eyed peas proved to be very easy. That's because, in the South, they are so popular around the new year that supermarkets actually replace the normal "impulse-buy" items (such as Yosemite Sam mud flaps), with bags of black-eyed peas. These bags often include special seasonings and a coupon for hog jowls. For those of you who have never prepared black-eyed peas, pork is a crucial element because, without it, you might as well be eating boiled erasers. In fact, one of the more popular recipes includes peppered tomatoes, Cajun seasonings and extra-spicy Andoulle sausage. Appropriately enough, this recipe is known as "Hoppin' John," which, depending on how much you eat, pretty much describes what you'll be doing the morning of Jan. 2.

I should mention that the black-eyed pea thing isn't the only Southern tradition that leaves Northerners like myself scratching our heads and begging for biscuits until the baby cries (and yes, that's a totally made-up colloquialism). There's also something called the "first footing," in which the first person to cross your threshold on Jan. 1 foretells the kind of luck you'll have in the New Year. Traditionally, you hope for someone good-looking or someone with influence, or, at the very least, someone you haven't seen in a while who owes you money.

Being Danish, I prefer a much more sensible tradition that is shared by the Dutch. And that is to celebrate by gathering those closest to you, then - in a symbolic gesture representing the "full circle" of life in the new year - eating a bunch of donuts.

This makes perfect sense to me.

However, my wife still insists on making her annual batch of black-eyed peas. And this time, she's preparing a new, extra-spicy "Hoppin' John" recipe - which is sort of a compromise.

If I can't eat a donut on New Year's Day, I might as well be sitting on one.

You can write to Ned Hickson at nhickson@oregonfast.net, or at the Siuslaw News at P.O. Box 10, Florence, OR 97439.