This Week’s Meal Plan includes all kinds of warm dishes from yesterday’s recipe idea post, including a twist on the traditional Southern Collard Greens and Black-Eyed Peas for New Year’s! The tradition stems back to an ancient Jewish custom that included eating symbols of prosperity, including black-eyed peas, leeks, beets or spinach, dates, and bottle gourds (in the squash family) at Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year.
When Jews arrived in the United States in the early 1700’s, they came to the Southern state of Georgia, where non-Jewish farmers adopted the symbols of prosperity around the time of the Civil War. But the Georgian farmers added pork to their greens and beans for flavor. Teri Green wrote an article called “A Tasty Tradition: New Year’s Meal Means Good Luck, Good Eats,” in which she writes, “The peas, since they swell when cooked, symbolize prosperity; the greens symbolize money; the pork, because pigs root forward when foraging, represents positive motion” (Montgomery Advertiser, Jan. 2, 2009).
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This Week’s Basket Included:
- Hurricane Creek Farm’s Cucumber
- Hurricane Creek Farm’s Bibb Lettuce
- Hurricane Creek Farm’s Tomatoes
- Regional Collards
- Carrots with Tops
- Green Onions
- Fancy Braeburn Apples
- Bananas
- Tangelos
- Tangerines
- Russet Potatoes
- Crimini Mushrooms