Tag: black eyed peas

Collards: A Southern Superstition

~ sanebishop ~ 1 Comment

The New Year means resolutions for most of the country. But in the South, it also means it’s time to cook collards. Eating collards and black eye peas on New Year’s Day is a southern tradition, or really a superstition.

Collards represent cash, and black eye peas represent cents. If you eat both on New Year’s Day, you’ll make lots of money in the upcoming year, or so the superstition goes. And just so you’re prepared to make lots of money in the New Year, below is my mom’s recipe for cooking collards, with some photos of her collards at Christmas. She cooks them like my grandma used to, frying them after boiling them.

Have a Happy New Year and don’t forget to eat your collards and black eye peas!

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Here’s my mom’s recipe that she learned from my grandma:

  1. Cut the leaf off of the main vein that runs through the leaf. They seem to cook better if I have a large amount of leaves to cook at one time.
  2. If any of the little veins that runs through the leaf is of any size, I cut the leaf from around those also.
  3. Once I have my leaves, I wash them several times.
  4. Then using a large large pot, I boil the leaves until they get really soft (I usually cook for an hour or so)
  5. Then drain the leaves good to get rid of excess water.
  6. Then with my hand chopper, I chop the leaves up really small.
  7. Then in a large frying pan I put oil (enough to cover the pan but not deep).
  8. Place collards in pan to begin cooking process.
  9. Sprinkle some sugar over the collards and stir.
  10. Once they start cooking I turn heat down and cover with a lid. Keep checking. Sometimes I keep adding a little oil and sugar.

Do not let them dry out when cooking (Keep moist with oil). I let them cook slow for a while. Many people do not add the sugar, but that is the way we like them.

 

collards
Collards in the frying pan, ready to eat.

Old Tradition for a New Year

~ sanebishop ~ 4 Comments
cash money

In keeping with tradition, I ate collards and black-eyed peas yesterday. The collards represent cash money, and the black-eyed peas represent coins. By eating them on New Year’s day, I’ll supposedly bring in a lot of cash and coins this upcoming year.

I grew two types of collards this fall: southern and Vates’. The southern collards are the ones I remember growing up, and by remember I mean remember smelling. The smell of cooking collards can linger in the air and memory, and it was this pungent smell that deterred me from eating them. When I’ve actually worked up the nerve to eat collards, I can say they taste a lot better than they smell, though I still prefer black-eyed peas on New Year’s day.

Both the southern and Vates’ collards grew well, and both made it through several hard frosts to New Year’s day. Last year, our neighbor grew a big garden of greens, but he lost most of the greens early because it was such a cold winter. Southern collards have thick, leathery leaves and are renown for their hardiness, but the Vates’ collards have also withstood the cold nights.

As far as taste goes, I wasn’t able to tell much difference in taste between the two varieties. The biggest difference was in appearance. The Vates’ collards have a crinkly leaf margin and the southern collards have a smooth, spinach-like leaf margin and texture. To most people though, a collard is a collard, and you either love them or hate them–regardless of the variety.

Southern collard on left; Vates collard on right