I do kind of wonder at the appellation “a walking Wikipedia”. Does that give the fella added credence or not?
My relatives come from Southern Virginia. You had black eyed peas and stewed tomatoes on New Years. Pork/ham was just an add on. Greens were necessary.
I moved to Northern Ohio in 1971. These strange folks had pork and sauerkraut. Never hear of that growing up in the South.
Now we have New Years meals that combine all of the above. Best of all worlds.
:smack: Totally forgot my mom is coming over for dinner tomorrow so we can do “our” Christmas with my daughter (who was out of town on the 25th.)
Hmmm…means I need to fancy it up a little. Guess I’ll add a ham, and, inspired by y’all, some sweet potatoes. Still do the blackeyed peas, but as a side dish.
Dagnabbit…she’s gonna eat half my greens! 
2x post; deleting one
I believe ‘rubiya’ is fenugreek. To wikipedia I say: cite?
ETA: well one dude has some explanation, at least.
Yup, same basic meal here: Ham, black eyed peas, collards, and corn bread.
Yep, hopping johns are the way we do it here.
Yep, me too. Got mine in the fridge. Mmmmmm…
We do pork and sauerkraut in Lancaster County, PA. I can’t recall a single New Year’s Day in my entire life that I didn’t have pork and sauerkraut. I do recall, however, that I ate most of those meals with a crushing hangover.
Pennsylvania Dutch superstition says that eating pork brings good luck because a pig roots forward to look for its food, while chickens scratch backward and cows stand still.
That’s mentioned in the quote. 
Since I’m the only one who eats them, I mix a drained can of black eyed peas with a can of Glory brand Seasoned Greens. (I made a recipe from scratch once, using all fresh ingredients and a ham hock, but the ham hock was SO salty it ruined the whole thing, it was inedible. Maybe I should try a smoked turkey wing.)
I never salt my peas/beans until the end. Not because it will make the beans hard (it won’t, although it will help the skins stay intact), but because, as you found out, smoked meat products vary widely in their salt content. Sometimes I have to add tons of salt, sometimes none at all. The only way to tell is to taste and adjust at the end of the cooking.
It’s not a tradition at all in our family, but they were serving them (with chili and cinammon rolls) at our church Sunday morning so we had some then.
The deuce you say! Why yes it is.
We ended up with hoppin’ John for NYE…mmmmmmm.
I was raised in the South, and always heard the story recounted in the last paragraph of the wikipedia entry that was previously linked above:
Because the Union troops supposedly left the black-eyed peas, this crop kept many Southerners alive after Sherman’s invasion, especially the following winter. As the story goes, many Southerners had nothing else to eat on New Year’s Day, and so were lucky to have it. This led to the tradition of eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day for luck, and by extension, to bring good luck for the subsequent year.
We had hoppin’ John, turnip greens and cornbread for NY day. The Fella’s sister made the hoppin’ John and I made the turnip greens and cornbread. With his whole family at his dad’s house, it was all gone by the end of the day.
I ate 'em yesterday, and I ate the leftovers today, along with collards (for $$), and stewed tomatoes (for health).
However, sugar has no place in cornbread. I’ll go to my grave believing that. Cornbread should be savory, not sweet, ESPECIALLY when you make cornsticks. Cornsticks are awesome.
I even had some cornbread and buttermilk for supper, in memory of my mom. She used to eat it all the time.
By the way, my 6 year old would like me to announce a new New Year’s Day food association: eating sweet potatoes means you will have a sweetheart in the new year!
Why? 'Cause I told her the meaning of the peas, pig and greens, but had no explanation other than, “'cause they taste good with ham” for the sweet potatoes.
She decided to make one up. So there you go. Everyone who had sweet potatoes will be lucky in love this year! 
That’s lovely! A great new tradition…
In Italy the traditional New Year’s Eve dinner is lentils, they resemble coins and you eat a lot so you won’t want for cash in the new year. The lentils are cooked with Zampone and Cotechino which I find revolting so use sausage instead!
I like it!