Food Ritual

Optional prompt for the "Friday Writings Week # 205" is  " . . . we’ll invite you to write about “food as ritual.” " 

Here goes 

[click on picture for bigger size view]

     New Years Day

New Years Day in the South means black eyed peas and cabbage. The peas are for wealth, the cabbage for health, during the next year and the future. And of course good Southern food is cushioned by made-from-scratch cornbread. The ham will be from Thanksgiving day leftovers.

We don't believe in influencing luck by what we eat, but it is a Southern tradition we have followed for the 52 years we have been married.  She is a Louisiana lady still. 

Southern people eat black-eyed peas, most Northerners don't. When General Sherman went through the South burning everything, including the food supply, he didn't mess with the black-eyed peas. He thought they were food for the cattle, and his troops had already killed or eaten the cattle.

So, the people who survived boiled those beans and ate them. It was like they were rich, they had a lot of food. Only thing, it was all in the granary formerly food for the cattle.

I have no idea why they eat the cabbage, I'm sure it too was at some time they were lucky in health and had been eating cabbage.

For supper that night we would share this frozen Runza. It may be the of last Runza's we brought back from Nebraska in early last  December.

So Runza for Nebraskans and black eyed peas are because I married a Southern lady of course I like them too.  

Note:  Please remember that my "jim's little Christmas Tree Farm" blog is open now. It is featuring Christmas trees that I run across this season.  Find them here, 

https://jimmiehov7.blogspot.com/?m=1

. . . 

 - Photo and Prose Piece Copyright ©️ jimmiehov 2025 All Rights Reserved 

 - I am linked with  "Friday Writings" 205 at  https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/?m=1 

 . . .