I've heard lot's of stories of how this tradition first started. One of the stories goes... that during the civil war the Yankees were particularly brutal in their warring. They would come through and take everything of value. Take all the food, take the animals. Slaughter what they couldn't take and burn the rest. The crops left in the field the homes everything was decimated and unusable by the time they finally left town. In most towns it was just woman and children and old men left behind as all the men had gone to war. But there was no way a good Southern woman would let her babies and elders starve. 'Where there is a will there is a way!' became a saying. All that was left once the Yankee raiders left town, usually, was feed meant for the animals that no longer existed. That feed, often time, consisted of black eyed peas. They ate the animal feed to survive. And after that in order to commemorate that god finds a way... we eat black eyed peas on New Years Day.
But I usually eat some on New Years Eve too just to make sure I get all the good luck out of them.
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| My peas are doing an over night soak they will be ready for when I get home to start cooking. |
