While us Southerners generally eat like kings on holidays, the traditional Southern New Years day meal is meager in comparison.
Here’s my little history lesson for the day… Back when the Union soldiers raided the South during the Civil War, the destroyed most all of the crops and food, leaving only items they needed to feed their horses or that they considered to bad to eat, like greens, peas and fatback. Our ancestors learned to cook these foods just in order to survive, but today we consider them good eatin’.
A simple length of burlap served as our table cover and was a fun, casual contrast to the mercury glass votives. In a similar juxtaposition, formal white rose arrangements were unexpected in mason jars.
Our guests provided the appetizers – loaded baked potato dip (so yummy – see Jan 2011 Southern Living) , spinach dips and pimento cheese. Chips and dippers were served in brown paper bags.
Our eats included Bourbon and Brown Sugar Pork Tenderloin, Collard Greens (for wealth), Hoppin John (for luck), Sweet Cornbread Waffles and The Pirate’s House Pecan Pie.
As I sat down with friends and family on 1/1/11 I was reminded once again just how good life is.
[I’ll need to remind myself of that throughout the day as Honey returned to work after a two week holiday and the boys are already running the halls …]