What Happens When You Don’t Eat Black Eyed Peas And Greens

On New Years day you will find many southerners eating black eyed peas and greens. The tradition is that the peas are suppose to bring good luck, or coins and the greens bring wealth in the new year .  Being raised in a southern home this was always a tradition and one I continued with my own family and friends.

This January 1st we were out of town and missed eating our normal New Years meal.  Now,  I don’t consider myself a superstitious person at all but after everything that happened in January I am beginning to think there is something to all of this.  LOL

New Year traditions, black eyed peas and greens, southern traditions

 

We were stranded for two hours waiting for a tow truck.  Major car repairs were needed. $$$$
Our credit card number was stolen.  Let’s just say that the thief has very expensive taste.
My camera lens broke and has to be replaced
We hired a company to clean rust stains from our salt water pool.  The chemical he used caused  four leaks which now will require draining the pool, chiseling out the area around pipes and doing repairs.  Oh,  the rust stains are still there.  $$$
Wheel bearing on Steve’s car needed to be replaced.  This is the 2nd one in two months.
Florida Blue cancelled my health insurance “per my request”.  WHAT?   Many,  many phone calls later (average hold time 1 hour + per call)  I thought it was finally resolved.  A few days later I received a letter with my new premium amount which was four times higher than my prior cost!  Finally corrected after another round of phone calls.

I accidentally deleted the Project Page on my blog,  including a couple hundred pictures and links.  It will take me weeks to rebuild the page.My cousin and I had a garage sale that was a BIG flop.  Friday the weather was suppose to be 72 degrees and chance of rain late afternoon.  We barely got everything set up by 8:00 am and it started to rain.  We took everything down and waited the rain out.  About an hour later we were able to set everything up again only to have it start pouring down rain a couple of hours later.  Same thing happened on Saturday with rain, high winds and temps that dropped to 50 degree.  About the only things we sold were the items we bought from each other!

I found out I have an ulcer….I wonder why?Is all of this a coincidence or should I get a rabbits foot, four leaf clover, lucky penny, a horseshoe and stay in bed on Friday the 13th just in case?  Either way you can bet I’ll be eating black eyed peas and greens next New Years.

 

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Here is a little info on how the tradition of eating black eyed peas and greens started…..

“The story of THE BLACK EYED PEA being considered good luck relates directly back to Sherman’s Bloody March to the Sea in late 1864. It was called The Savannah Campaign and was lead by Major General William T. Sherman. The Civil War campaign began on 11/15/64 when Sherman ‘s troops marched from the captured city of Atlanta, Georgia, and ended at the port of Savannah on 12/22/1864. 

When the smoke cleared, the southerners who had survived the onslaught came out of hiding. They found that the aggressors had looted and stolen everything of value and everything you could eat including all livestock, death and destruction were everywhere. While in hiding, few had enough to eat, and starvation was now upon the survivors.

The Northern army had taken everything they could carry and eaten everything they could eat. But they couldn’t take it all. The devastated people of the south found for some unknown reason that Sherman ’s troops had left silos full of black eyed peas. 

At the time in the north, the lowly black eyed pea was only used to feed stock. The northern troops saw it as the thing of least value. Taking grain for their horses and livestock and other crops to feed themselves, they just couldn’t take everything. So they left the black eyed peas in great quantities assuming it would be of no use to the survivors, since all the livestock it could feed had either been taken or eaten.

Southerners awoke to face a new year in this devastation and were facing massive starvation if not for the good luck of having the black eyed peas to eat. From New Years Day 1866 forward, the tradition grew to eat black eyed peas on New Year’s Day for good luck.   Are you superstitious or are there traditions you follow?

Thanks for visiting.

Hugs,
Sherry

Lucia
Author

24 thoughts on “What Happens When You Don’t Eat Black Eyed Peas And Greens”

  1. Oh that is some bad luck! Hope everything is ok now- I was thinking maybe you could make up for it too lol
    Thanks for sharing the story behind it- I had know idea why they were considered good luck!

  2. Laura, I bought five tickets to the recent huge Powerball and didn't get a single number. Marty, I have felt like that many days in January.
    Thanks to both of you for dropping by.
    Sherry

  3. Bless Your Heart

    yes I was raised to eat black eyed peas on New Years Day and always have and now I have taught my little grandsons to eat black eyed peas on New years Day also. When my youngest daughter was little she would wrap one black eyed pea in an whole slice of bread to eat it, she is 40 now LOL she says she remembers me making her eat them

    YELL OUT LOUD bad Stuff GO AWAY i'm sure things will be bad to your wonderful life soon

  4. Oh, Sherry, I'm so sorry! And that's just the recap from the first few days of the new year? God bless you!!

    I'm not particularly superstitious, but I did have black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. Maybe you should have peas and greens for dinner tonight and start the new year all over!

    Take care!

  5. Wow- I hope your luck does change soon! I am a believer in eating black eyed peas and cabbage every year. Like you, I regretted it the one time we skipped it. I didn't know the history behind the tradition. Thanks for filling us in.
    Eilis@MyHeartLivesHere

  6. Hi Sherry….sorry about so much bad luck. I have come to dread the month of January as it always seems something dreadful happens that month and this past January was no exception…ugh! Hopefully February will take a turn. xoxo

  7. Curtains In My Tree. I had to laugh at the one pea in a piece of bread. I've never liked eggs and my mom would put a teaspoon of scrambled eggs inside a ball of peanut butter. Thanks for stopping by Kim and Ellis.

  8. Oh my gosh! That is a horrible start to the new year. I am not really superstitious, but if all of this happened and you missed the black eyed peas, I would suggest never missing them again, ever! Holy cow…that is a lot to happen in a few short weeks!

    My 2 year old fancy, as in their top one, frigidaire range had its cooling fan motor go out. I was charged for the bad news. I was charged big time for the replacement motor…which only has a 90 day warranty. I say…WHAT? My old regular ole range never broke. There is a lesson here. Don't buy the best, top of the line. Ha!

    I wish you luck…because you have had a rough go so far. And damn Sherman's troops. Not nice. Not nice at all. I feel strongly about some parts of our history's!
    Sheila

  9. Oh goodness…I just left you a message today to say hi and see how everything was going with you….Alrighty then, I guess I should have read your blog post first. OK, so I just know that February will get better! I hate when bad things happen to good people.

    Carol

  10. Wow…I really feel bad for you, Sherry, that was really a bad luck streak. Last year was the first and only time I made black eyed peas on New Year's Day as inspired by all of my southern blog friends. Within the next few weeks our washing machine and water heater broke and had to be replaced. Then the dishwasher. A few days later a pipe broke at our lakehouse and water gushed for three weeks and the whole place had to be gutted. The work isn't halfway done thanks to our 'wonderful' insurance company. Funny all of this is water related! lol!So…I guess you can see why I skipped making the black eyed peas this year!! 🙂

    Jane

  11. Oh my gosh Sherry!….I am so sorry you are going through all this mess!…and even more sorry that you discovered you have an ulcer on top of everything else….I hope your luck changes quickly!!!….Hopefully you got it out of the way early in the year and the rest of the year will be a great one….and loved learning about the black eyed peas…We eat them with our ham and collards on New Year's Day….xoxoxo's

  12. Oh how awful! That certainly is a long list of things that went wrong. I'm not the superstitious type, so I don't hold myself to certain rituals for good luck. I believe it's all in the mindset. If you expect bad luck, it will come. Ha! Hopefully, things are improving now for you.

  13. Yikes, what a month!Hopefully that will take care of your bad luck for the rest of the year. Thanks for sharing the history of the black eyed peas for good luck. I'd heard of the tradition, nice to know how it got started.
    Karee

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