hello 2023! {january 1, 2023}

 

Happy 2023!

I spent a good part of today prepping our traditional New Year's Eve dinner: ribs and homemade BBQ sauce, sauerkraut with carrots, onion, bacon, and kale, Hoppin' John, mashed potatoes and spinach salad. 

Growing up my parents didn't do the pork and sauerkraut for New Year's, which is surprising based on our German and Eastern European ancestry. T's parents did. His dad put a pork roast in the slow cooker and cooked it all day long.

I love to cook and I love to know the stories behind the cooking. 

Pork isn’t eaten on New Year’s Day only because it’s delicious - it is also thought to be good luck. The first reason for this goes back to the pig itself: In order to find food, a pig roots going forward. “It’s good to always go forward into the next year; you don’t want to go backward,”

Pork is also considered good luck because it is so rich in fat, and the fat signifies prosperity. Some people eat pork on the first day of the year in the hopes it will bring a lucky and prosperous year.

Even though sauerkraut is served in strands, the cabbage it originated from was round, is a shape thought to bring good luck. It’s also green—a color associated with financial prosperity. Symbolically, as many shreds of cabbage from the kraut is the amount of wealth you’ll have in the new year.

There are also logistical reasons why we eat sauerkraut this time of year. October and November are peak harvest times for cabbage in Germany and Eastern Europe, where sauerkraut is especially popular. At that point, the cabbage is chopped and put in barrels to begin the fermentation process.

Usually around New Year’s, fresh produce is scant, so these fermentation barrels are tapped and the good stuff begins to flow. The underlying health benefits of eating kraut also contributes to this tradition, as historically, fermented foods were a big source of vitamin C and nutrients when fresh produce wasn’t available.

Eating black eyed peas (Hoppin' John on my table) on New Year’s Day promises good luck, health and abundance. 

One story is that during the Civil War, Union soldiers raided lands of confederate families taking everything except the peas and salt pork because it wasn't for human consumption. Those peas and the salt pork fed the confederate families, which is how it developed its reputation for good luck.

Serving your black-eyed peas with greens, the peas represent coins and the greens represent paper money.

Scrumptious foods that bring good luck? Yes, please!

Wishing you health, happiness, and a good new year!