New Years Day 2013

Sheila is becoming quite the Southern Cook these days. This was our lunch, an authentic "hoppin john" made from black eyed peas, collard greens, smoked meat and other veggies and spices. She served it with jalapeno-cilantro cornbread and sweet tea. It was fabulous.

-----------------------

Today, most of us will eat black eyed peas "for good luck." It is a tradition in our house that we eat the old southern staple called "Hoppin' John" which is made of black eyed peas rice and other vegetables. But, most people don't know WHY southerners do this.

That great humanitarian Abraham Lincoln ordered General William Tecumseh Sherman (a vicious racist btw) to burn his way across the South until he reached the sea. His orders were to not only seize military objectives but to also burn cities, towns, farms, homes and crops as he went. He was ordered to kill livestock, steal foodstuffs and literally leave the South starving.

He did this with a vengeance. In that sad winter, the South was starving. But, ignorant Yankees that they were, they did not recognize the food value of black eyed peas and thought they were simply hog fodder. So, they did not destroy the black eyed peas. The South survived that winter on black eyed peas seasoned with a little salt pork and some winter or early spring greens. This was the southern "luck" associated with black eyed peas.

So when you eat your black eyed peas today, you are honoring your southern ancestors who were tough enough to survive on food that the Yankees thought was worthless and in the process remembering the despicable cruelty of your own Federal government when some of it's people resist it.

From Facebook:

Bill Kumpe Sherman's march was not the only instance of Lincoln's use of starvation as a weapon of war. In Ft. Gibson, Oklahoma the Union Cavalry fed their horses corn while the Cherokee women and children outside were being systematically starved because some of their men had joined the Confederate cause. The Cherokee women would follow the cavalry columns at a distance and pick undigested corn kernels from the horse droppings to have something to feed their starving children.

Jim Honea I'm amazed at the cruelty and hatred that comes from war. The deadliest war in American history and we were killing each other. I still don't see how the Union Army could claim any moral high ground. I remember the full name of these New Years Delicacies (we have them throughout the year)---"Black Eyed Cow Peas".

Bill Kumpe:  Jim, if you you get a yen for Oklahoma history do some reading on the civil war in Oklahoma. Fascinating stuff. The Confederacy offered the civilized tribes a far better deal than the Union and they took it and split the tribe in the process. The absolute racism of the Union and particularly Kansans toward the tribes was disgusting. Lincoln ordered a second march to the sea through Oklahoma and Texas. They left a trail of dead troopers all the way back to Ft. Gibson. The Cherokee and Choctaw troops along with I believe the 9th Texas Cav. chewed them to ribbons.