With a curtsy to Steve at The Aging Hipster, I started thinking about my family's traditions for New Year.
As Steve mentions on his blog, a southern tradition is black-eyed peas and cabbage. Then there are those that believe serving food that is expensive and extravagant - indicate our wish to have lots of good things happen in the coming year. Which is why Lobster or one of the more expensive cuts beef is served. Cabbage is another "good luck" vegetable, in my family the tradition is a pork roast (pork being another "good luck" choice) baked with sauerkraut (I always want to spell that word wrong - lol). In some Asian families also follow the cabbage good luck principle with kimchee.
Some people really put alot of belief into the power of the kraut...Craig Wilson shares from a reader:
"It occurred to me that this has been one of the worst years of my life, and then I remembered that I didn't have sauerkraut this past New Year's Day," she wrote. "I was in England at the time (don't go there in January) and couldn't find any sauerkraut anywhere to eat. Maybe I'm a little more superstitious than I like to admit. Hope you had sauerkraut on New Year's Day and that you're having a better year."
I'm not sure how much I rely on this, but not only is the magical cabbage supposed to bring you good luck but it is stated it might be a cure for the bird flu:
Scientists at Seoul National University successfully used Kimchi Sauerkraut to treat chickens infected with avian flu. Kimchi is a seasoned variety of sauerkraut that shares Lactobacillus bacteria with traditional Sauerkraut, which may be the critical element in preventing Avian Flu. Both Kimchi and traditional Sauerkraut are made by fermenting sliced cabbage, producing a high level of lactic acid.
Let's hope this is a bit more reliable than the Korean Scientists who claimed they had made breakthrus in stem cell research...But even if it's not true? Enjoy your traditions no matter what they might be.
And Happy New Year!
Cabbagedtracked for luck at:
Uncooperative Blogger (Best wishes to him right now), Stuck on Stupid (At their new digs), The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns (Laying down some OTA rules), and Conservative Cat (One of the smartest felines I know).....
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30 comments:
In the south the tradition is Hoppin John, don't know where the cabbage came from.
Eat poor that day, eat rich the rest of the year.
Rice for riches and peas for peace.
- Southern saying on eating a dish of Hoppin' John on New Year's Day.
Hoppin' John
2 cups dried black-eyed peas
Cold water
1 pound lean slab bacon or 1 pound meaty ham hocks
1 large onion, chopped
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
4 cups water or chicken broth
2 cups uncooked long-grain white rice
Salt and black pepper to taste
Before preparing dried beans, sort through them thoroughly for tiny pebbles or other debris. Soak, rinse, and drain dried black-eyed peas. Place black-eyed peas in a large soup pot over medium-high heat and cover with cold water; bring to a boil. Remove from heat; cover and let stand 1 to 2 hours. Drain and rinse beans.
Using the same large soup pot, over medium-high heat, add soaked black-eyed peas, bacon or ham hock, onion, and red pepper. Add water or chicken broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until the peas are tender (do not boil as the beans will burst).
Remove bacon or ham hock and cut into bite-size pieces. Return meat to pot. Stir in rice, cover, and cook 20 to 25 minutes or until rice is tender and liquid is absorbed. Remove from heat and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Makes 8 servings.
I don't really have any New Year's traditions.
I used to have one (drinking heavily to ring in the new year), but I've long since walked away from that vice.
Maybe I'll have to start a tradition...
I have made Hoppin John before, it is very good. Especially with cornbread as a side dish.
Ditto on the drinking part Mike, something I don't do anymore either. Tonight is movie night, relaxing and enjoying family.
:-)
cabbage???? oh the horror! it's blackeyed peas and collard greens ... and yup, it's about financial prosperity, greens for the greenbacks and peas for the coin.
have a happy!!
See to us up here in the north, most of us don't eat collard greens. I have tried them but most often here it's spinach that's used.
I don't think the blackeyed peas is "with" the cabbage, sounds like the cabbage is a separate side dish. That's something I enjoy too, fried cabbage...with lots of butter...
I however do not have german enough roots, my great-grandmother used to drink kraut juice noooo way.
:-)
For me my New Year tradition has nothing to do with food whatsoever. I prefer a quiet, contemplative New Year's eve to think about how to make the New Year better than the old one.
Not that it worked out that way this year. My mom brought over a friend that was neither quiet nor contemplative.
:-(
Still, as long as 2006 is better than 2005, I won't let it bother me.
Though, I'm a northern gal and I do like collard greens. I still prefer spinach, but I won't touch cabbage. The worst no longer practiced tradition in my family (I don't think it was for New Year's, though) was my great-grandpa used to eat pond scum soup. I do believe this tradition died with him, and for that I'm grateful.
My New Year's Eve is usually a huge conglomeration of people this year all of the kids were at other places so it was a very quiet enjoyable one.
Alot easier to clean up too - lol.
So I can see why you would enjoy that Stephanie, especially after experiencing it. At least until the phone calls started at 12:01 - lol
:-)
Pond scum soup?
I'm just not much of a partier, I guess. Or a drinker, which is what most of the parties around here consist of.
This year our thoughts were focused on how to improve our career paths (like, having one). Last year we focused our thoughts on what we needed to do to help our boys in school.
Pond scum soup -- while I don't have a recipe, the basic ingredient is the film that grows on the surface of ponds. It's a soup made out of algae. Presumably it's nutritious and make great-grandpa didn't have to worry so much about pollution. But the nasty factor is way too much for me to even consider it. Though, the tale goes that he ate lots of things I would consider nasty, including frog egg omelets and rattle snake.
Okay I would def pass on the pond scum soup - lol.
I have had rattlesnake though, my dad was into trying different things and I always joined him. It does as the saying goes, "taste like chicken" though a bit sweeter of a chicken.
Frog legs? Yes, frog eggs? never nor does that appeal to me.
I don't do New Year Resolutions at all, though I do something close to what you do Stephanie, decide on what my goals should be thru out the year and then re-evaluate as needed since things never seem to go quite the way I plan them too.
(Yes, life does that to us doesn't it?)
:-)
Well, the way he'd do rattle snakes is catch them in Texas. Bring them back to Minnesota still alive. Then stick them in the freezer to kill them. The whole idea of it seemed cruel. Now, if there was a rattle snake dish being served at a restaurant, that'd be another thing altogether, but if it requires me catching, killing and carving it up...I'll pass. But that goes for just about anything, not just rattle snake. I'm just not the type to end up on Survivor.
Frog eggs...the worst part is that my great-grandma would have to break about thirty of them open and make them into an omelet for her husband's breakfast. That just seems like such a waste of time to me.
New Year's resolutions have never really worked for me. If I do something like that, I always set the hurdle too high and then I fail and give on the idea in general for a few months before I develop a plan that's actually realistic.
Though Fox Trot recently had a list of resolutions that was more up my alley!
:-)
Except, well, I don't watch t.v.
No, but re-evaluation is always an important part of meeting a goal. Especially if it's a long-term goal.
For me, though, I have three things I'm trying to determine. I have written one novel. The questions I have are these:
Is my first novel not yet published because I haven't found the right publisher or because it's not publishable? If it's not publishable, should I go back and fix it (again) or should I move on and write a new novel? If I should move on and write a new novel, which of the many stories that are bouncing around in my brain should I write?
These questions paralyzed my writing efforts in 2005 and I don't want to repeat that scenario in 2006.
I wrote a book, ended up self-publishing it thru cafe press because I didn't have nor want to spend the money to publish it thru a traditional publisher and I knew the chances of having a big publisher decide to publish it.
I'm happy with the results, I've sold some copies on line but have to get an ISBN number to sell it locally. I'll never be famous but that wasn't why I wrote the book.
:-)
"...because I didn't have nor want to spend the money to publish it thru a traditional publisher..."
Danger, danger, danger!!!
It should NOT cost you anything to publish a book with a traditional publisher! I'll amend that. It should only cost you the expense of submission (which would be paper, ink, box or envelope, and postage). Unless you go through self-publishing (as you did), there should be no cost to you that is paid to the publisher. If there is, you can be sure that they do not make their money from selling books, but from "publishing" them.
That being said...
I'm glad you're satisfied with the your publishing experience. Your satisfaction with the results is what matters.
For me, I've wanted to be a fantasy novelist for most of my life and have been trying to train myself for it. I'm thinking Madeleine L'Engle, Anne McAffrey and Mercedes Lackey here, so being published by a regular publishing house is a big part of accomplishing my goal. I'm told I have the talent and am working on developing the skills. Keeping on task is a problem, which is why I'm concentrating on determining what my task should be (thus it'll be easier to keep on it).
Lisa,
”See to us up here in the north, most of us don't eat collard greens. I have tried them but most often here it's spinach that's used.”
That’s because we’uns (white folks) don’t know how to fix ‘em…
I was told how to be an older black gentleman and it isn’t how I see Northerners fixin ‘em ;-)
Stephanie,
”The worst no longer practiced tradition in my family (I don't think it was for New Year's, though) was my great-grandpa used to eat pond scum soup.
I do believe this tradition died with him, and for that I'm grateful.”
You ARE kidding, aren’t you?
Did the “pond scum soup” in any way cause or contribute to his death?
So many family traditions are being lost; maybe you should embrace the old ways :-)
Happy New Year all!
hooda thunkit,
Nope. He ate pond scum soup, and to my knowledge it didn't contribute to his death whatsoever. Remember, Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes (actually more) and so algae was much in abundance.
And that is one tradition I'm definitely not embracing!!!
That's probably true HT, though I have tried them and to me they don't taste alot different than spinach.
Stephanie, you shouldn't have to pay for a book to be published, however my book wasn't accepted so it was either pay for it with one of the less reputible firms that would supposedly "market it" for me or self publish. I chose self publish because I wanted it in print. Mine wasn't fiction though, I was told it was well done but had too limited of a niche for them to be interested in. Your area of course is much different.
The niche thing is certainly a factor. Small niches can be great, but marketablity is always an issue there. Can I ask what your book was about?
For me, the message I get is "your book is good, but..."
The "but" is always different, which is why it's so hard to determine if the book is at fault, or if I simply have not found the right publisher. Alas, I hope to find the answer within myself soon.
Stephanie, biographical history of my father's family in Ohio as well as other early county history I discovered when trying to find out more about my father's family.
Most of it centered on information gained thru cemeteries since that was in most cases all I had to go on. I also found many other family stories along the way thru old history books, census records, tax records, etc. It also includes alot of photographs of the various grave markers and some of the artwork/styles common to Ohio.
It's linked on the main page of the blog if you'd like to see the type of photogrpahy work I did, the cover is one I designed.
It's the small icon that says "support this site"
To me I guess the indicator that it is good is people I don't know have bought it and they haven't returned it...
:-)
I just tend not to click on things unless I know (or can guess) what they are and I didn't know what that was.
You have quite a bit of merchandise there. Is that all stuff you have "in stock"?
Stephanie, they actually have alot more stuff than that - to be honest I did it only for the book but there have been people who have bought some of the items there. It's on demand creation of the product so it's always "in stock". Same with my book, when an order is made they print a copy out rather than store them. I've purchased some of the items myself including of course my book and it's amazingly pretty good quality.
Good news! I eat allot of Bonner Slaw in the winter time! I am IMMUNE!
Hmm. I was just thinking that this might be the route we want to take for VOID merchandise then. At some point I'll bring it up to the guys and if they're interested I might have to pick your brain, if that's okay?
Stephanie, of course that's not a problem.
:-)
Thank you.
I passed my idea along to the guys and will hopefully be able to begin acting on it by Friday.
Your support and assistance is very much appreciated!
:-)
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