My New Year’s Ritual: A Plate Full of Promises
- Aden Davis
- Jan 1
- 4 min read
As the clock strikes midnight and the calendar flips, there is a collective shift in the world’s energy. On the surface, it’s just another day—the sun rises and sets as it always does—but for my family, the New Year represents one of our most powerful psychological tools: the fresh start. This fresh start isn't just a mental shift; it’s a sensory experience. New Year’s Day is built around the belief that what you eat on January 1 sets the tone and a roadmap for the year to come. The traditional table is less about fine dining and more about symbolism: every bite is meant to invite luck, money, progress, or plain old survival. I always look forward to this meal, tasting such incredible flavors and meaning.
Each element carries a meaning rooted in African, African American, and Southern history, layered over centuries of hardship, creativity, and hope.
Black-Eyed Peas: Coins and Survival
In Southern lore, black-eyed peas are the backbone of a lucky New Year’s plate. They are often simmered low and slow with ham hocks, fatback, or bacon, sometimes served over rice as hoppin’ John. The peas themselves symbolize coins, and some people insist that the more peas you eat on New Year’s Day, the more prosperity you invite for each day of the year.
The story behind those peas reaches back to West Africa and the Middle Passage. Black-eyed peas (cowpeas) originated in West Africa and came to the Americas with enslaved Africans, who brought both the seeds and the knowledge of how to grow and cook them. During the Civil War, Union troops often ignored black-eyed peas, seeing them as animal feed, which left them behind in Southern fields and storehouses; for those who survived on them in desperate winters, peas became a symbol of unexpected luck and resilience “against the odds.”
New Year’s superstitions also tie into Emancipation Day. One popular telling links the custom of eating black-eyed peas on January 1 to celebrations when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect in 1863, making the humble pea an emblem of freedom as well as fortune. Even today, some families drop a coin in the pot before serving, and whoever finds it is said to have an extra-lucky year—so long as they do not actually swallow it.
Greens: Paper Money in the Pot
If black-eyed peas stand for coins, the greens stand for cash. Collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, or even cabbage are said to represent paper money, and eating them on New Year’s Day is supposed to draw financial wealth in the months ahead. A common saying in Black Southern households is simple: eat your greens for money, peas for luck, and you’ll be covered on both fronts.
Greens in the South are slow-cooked in a seasoned broth, often with pork trimmings, onions, and garlic. The cooking liquid that collects at the bottom of the pot—potlikker—is treasured in its own right and historically helped sustain communities when little else was available. In many homes, potlikker is sopped up with cornbread, tying together the symbols of money (greens), coins (peas), and gold (cornbread) in one bowl.
For many African American families, this part of the meal is especially charged with meaning: greens reflect not only hoped-for financial stability but also the endurance and resourcefulness it took to stretch inexpensive ingredients into nourishing, celebratory food.
Cornbread and Pork: Gold and Forward Motion
Cornbread nearly always shows up alongside those peas and greens, its golden color said to symbolize gold or general prosperity. Made from cornmeal, a crop that Indigenous people cultivated long before European colonization and that enslaved Africans transformed into dishes like cornbread and hoe cakes, it represents both abundance from the land and the creativity of people who learned to make much from very little.
Pork is the fourth pillar of the Southern New Year’s plate. Being able to raise or buy a hog historically signaled a certain level of success, so pork came to stand for abundance and progression. There is also a bit of barnyard folklore here: pigs root forward as they move, never backward, so pork is said to symbolize moving ahead into the new year rather than clinging to the past. Whether it appears as ham hocks in the peas, fatback in the greens, or a platter of roast pork, it rounds out the symbolism of wealth, luck, and forward motion on the table.
The Power of Collective Hope
Perhaps the most beautiful thing about the New Year is that we do it together. Whether you're in a high-rise in Detroit or a farmhouse in rural Mississippi, the act of eating these foods is a bridge across generations. It is an act of optimism to believe that eating a bowl of peas can influence your destiny, and in that belief, we find the energy to try again.
How will you define your year?
Whether you are planning a total life overhaul or simply hoping for a bit of peace and quiet, remember that the "magic" of the New Year doesn't live in the date—it lives in your decision to keep growing.
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