Re: Happy 2010 to my AFL pals!


"Steve Curtis" wrote...
What is it with black eyed peas on New Years? A woman I know always
consumes black eyed peas before and after midnight on New Years Eve
every year as some kind of tradition but she won't tell me why. Can
anyone fill me in?

Another source, the Wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black-eyed_pea

Eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day is thought to bring prosperity.

The "good luck" traditions of eating black eyed peas at Rosh Hashana, the
Jewish New Year, are recorded in the Babylonian Talmud (compiled ~500 CE),
Horayot 12A: "Abaye [d. 339 CE] said, now that you have established that
good-luck symbols avail, you should make it a habit to see Qara(bottle
gourd), Rubiya (black-eyed peas, Arabic Lubiya), Kartei (leeks), Silka
(either beets orspinach), and Tamrei (dates) on your table on the New Year."
However, the custom may have resulted from an early mistranslation of the
Aramaic word rubiya (fenugreek).

A parallel text in Kritot 5B states that one should eat these symbols of
good luck. The accepted custom (Shulhan Aruh Orah Hayim 583:1, 16th century,
the standard code of Jewish law and practice) is to eat the symbols. This
custom is followed by Sephardi and Israeli Jews to this day.

In the United States, the first Sephardi Jews arrived in Georgia in the
1730s and have lived there continuously since. The Jewish practice was
apparently adopted by non-Jews around the time of the American Civil War.

In the Southern United States, the peas are typically cooked with a pork
product for flavoring (such as bacon, ham bones, fatback, or hog jowl),
diced onion, and served with a hot chili sauce or a pepper-flavored vinegar.

The traditional meal also features collard, turnip, or mustard greens, and
ham. The peas, since they swell when cooked, symbolize prosperity; the
greens symbolize money; the pork, because pigs root forward when foraging,
represents positive motion. Cornbread also often accompanies this meal.

These "good luck" traditions supposedly date back to the Civil War, when
Union troops, especially in areas targeted by General William Tecumseh
Sherman, typically stripped the countryside of all stored food, crops, and
livestock, and destroyed whatever they couldn't carry away. At that time,
Northerners considered "field peas" and field corn suitable only for animal
fodder, and didn't steal or destroy these humble foods.




--


Alan

www.best-page.us

www.wfp.org

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