Two New Ways to Eat Your Collards & Black-Eyed Peas for the New Year

New Year’s Eve gets all the attention—Champagne and pigs in a blanket, sparklers and velvet dresses—but growing up in Alabama, it was New Year’s Day that I looked forward to the most. In my family, New Year’s Day meant a giant feast, one that was different from our Christmas celebrations just a week before. And no matter what, we’d have the holy trinity of Southern New Year foods on the table: black-eyed peas, collard greens, and cornbread.

Black-eyed peas and collard greens are traditionally eaten on New Year’s Day across the South, to symbolize luck and money in the forthcoming year. Like so many of my favorite Southern foods, they came out of the African diaspora. Black-eyed peas are native to West Africa, a region from which many enslaved people were forcefully taken. And the style of cooking collard greens most associated with Southern food— cooked down until they’re silky and salty, thanks to the addition of a ham hock—also stems from West African cooking traditions.

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