Black Eyed Peas, No Fergie: Who Was The Prosperity For?

On January 1, I’ll be in the kitchen carrying on Southern and family tradition. I grew up eating black-eyed peas year-round, but they were always extra special on New Year’s Day, served with collards and cornbread.

My dad would soak the peas overnight and start the pot early the next morning. He was never in a hurry—taking his time, adding seasoning slowly, tasting as he went. There was always some smoked meat in the pot, but on New Year’s it was always pork jowls.

The collard greens were made the Eastern North Carolina way: stems removed, leaves cut very fine, with very little pot liquor. The cornbread was Jiffy, baked in this beat-up metal pie pan he always used. I know he followed the recipe on the box for the most part, but that raggedy pan was magic. It turned out perfect cornbread every single time.

Now let’s talk about my mom’s black-eyed peas for a second.

To understand the kind of cook she is, you have to know this—she is always going to criticize her own food. I’ve always used that as a gauge for how good the meal was about to be. If the criticism was heavy, you were about to have a mean pot of peas! 

I will not explain what a mean pot of peas is. If that resonates with you, you are my people.

Her collard greens were made more like my grandmother’s recipe—larger cut leaves and plenty of pot liquor.

Southern tradition calls us to eat this combination on the first day of the year for prosperity, growth, and good fortune. That sounds good, and of course it’s something everyone has agreed on as we happily consume one of the ultimate Southern comfort meals. But when you sit with it, the idea of prosperity, growth, and good fortune sounds more like the hopes of the person who owned the plantation, not the people forced to work the fields until they died.

The black-eyed pea was brought to this side of the world through the transatlantic slave trade. The crop thrived in Africa and did just as well in the warm Southern soil. Enslaved Africans already had the knowledge and skill to cultivate, cook, and preserve it, so it became a staple in their diet here in America, just as it had been back home.

I contend that because it was a staple, the enslaved didn’t wait for a “special day” to eat something they had been eating for thousands of years. White planters made a spectacle of consuming the food the enslaved seemed to love so much and turned it into a celebrated Southern tradition.

The first waves of enslaved Africans likely longed for home, wondering if they would ever see it again as they ate food from the land they were stolen from. As time passed, those who remembered Africa died, but the stories of home were inherited by each generation that followed.

In Gullah Geechee culture, there is a tradition of burying the deceased near water and facing east, to help guide the spirit back to Mother Africa.

It’s funny—when I was a kid, and even well into adulthood before I learned the history I know today, I thought celebrating my African heritage was reserved for February. Black History Month was what was “given” to us to learn, and many of us quietly noted that it was the shortest month of the year.

But the truth is, we are surrounded by and steeped in Black culture every single day. And when you consider the impact of Soul Food on American popular food culture, so is America.

I know these parts of history can stir up feelings. As you sit down to your New Year’s meal—passing the peas, the greens, the cornbread—I hope you sit with those feelings, even if just for a moment. Not for guilt or debate, but for consideration. Consider the hands that first grew this food, the voices that carried these traditions forward, and the truth that the “winners” are often the ones who get to write the history. Sometimes the table remembers what the history books do not.