Black Eyed Peas For a Prosperous New Year?
Happy New Year! Better late than never eh? Plus, what is time in the middle of a pandemic?
This New Year was kind of low-key, which kind of makes sense considering the continuous state of the world. Initially I had big plans of doing it up big in my living room. I was going to do my makeup, dress up, and listen to some live DJ-or-another online somewhere. My sleep schedule is kind of out of sorts these days because, well, refer back the intro sentence for more clarity.
So on NYE I got up hella early once again, for no particular reason and promptly started drinking red while and partaking in, ahem, other adult refreshments. I think I ended up watching music videos and recaps of Love After Lockup for most of the morning before heading out to do some grocery shopping for my New Years Day.
One of the things this pandemic has taught me is that I have to be committed to creating and bringing magic into my life on my own terms, without necessarily relying on outside forces. This year I decided to participate in a long-standing Black American, New Years day tradition and cook a meal of black eye peas.
Native to West Africa, black eye peas have historically been eaten by Black-Americans for centuries. Symbolic of coins or pennies, the dish is thought to bring prosperity in the new year. Now as a Black girl from Cleveland with grandparents from the south, I grew up eating black eye peas but had no idea about the dish’s connection to the new year. Since things are so restrictive this year with what we can do, I figured why not participate in a fun and delicious ritual to celebrate the ancestors and start things off right.
I decided to make a whole meal of it and fried up some banana blossom as a sort of mock-fried fish along with some potato salad. It was fun to work with a new ingredient and try out a new recipe. And the results were absolutely delicious, of course.
