"eat and prosper" ~ music to my ears

Ham & Beans on New Year’s Day has been a tradition since I can remember and if you ask Kiks she’ll tell you the same thing! So if my calculation is correct our family has been eating this dish that is kind of like stew but a little like soup and it’s cooked with the ham bone left over from Christmas for over 50 years!! I did not like Ham & Beans as a child but my mother made me eat at least one (1) bite on New Year’s Day so that I would have a prosperous new year with lots of good luck… I thought it was SO weird as a child but as I grew older I loved (and still do) the tradition and actually I have grown quite fond of Ham & Beans!! Oh and don’t forget the Cornbread!!

In our local newspaper this morning they covered the tradition of Ham & Beans as well as many others. Here are a few of the highlights from the article:

{From The Southern newspaper}

In Southern Illinois, most folks eat ham and beans for good luck in the new year. But there are many different traditions.

Ruth Parker of Carbondale and Sharon Alstat of Murphysboro were having lunch at Cindy B’s in Murphysboro on Tuesday. Parker said her family didn’t have a New Year’s Day meal tradition. Growing up in northern Illinois, her family simply fixed a regular meal on the holiday, like they would at Thanksgiving or Christmas.

“We never even knew what black-eyed peas were,” she said.

In the Alstat house, beans are the norm.

“You have to have beans, or you won’t have good luck,” she said.

Georgianna Feagns of Flora was visiting her granddaughter in Murphysboro. In her family, eating corned beef and cabbage on New Year’s meant good fortune.

“If you want to have money, you have to eat it,” Feagns said.

Donna Pugh of Murphysboro subscribes to the beans-mean-success tradition. For good measure, her family has pinto beans, red beans and rice and black-eyed peas.

“I’ve never had a New Year’s when we didn’t eat beans,” Pugh said.

And has that brought her good fortune?

“Absolutely,” she said. “I haven’t run out of money, yet.”

………………………………………………………..

New Year food traditions

Take your pick from the foods below,
based on whichever group fits your background best or what you like to eat.
After all, a bite of pickled herring is a small price to pay for prosperity.

Beans and peas: Black-eyed peas in the South, lentils in Brazil, green
lentils in Italy and Hungary. Some say it’s because they resemble coins. But
it’s also very ancient. Since dried beans swell when they are cooked, they have
always represented getting more.

Green leafy things: Collards in the
South, cabbage in Korea (kimchi) Bosnia, Croatia; sauerkraut in Germany.
Southerners think green leaves represent dollars, but connections to leafy
greens date to cultures that didn’t have green dollar bills. It probably has
more to do with ancient beliefs that green is lucky because of its connection to
spring and new growth.

Egg rolls: Egg rolls and stacks of spring rolls
represent gold bars in Asian cultures.

Fish: Herring, pickled and not
pickled, in Germany, Scandinavia, Poland; cod in Denmark and Italy. Fish
symbolize prosperity in a lot of places, because of the need for a good catch or
from the idea of hauling in riches. Asian cultures also serve fish with the head
and tail on to represent a complete life.

Oranges: Anything that looks
like gold represents riches in Asian cultures.

Pork: Stands for
prosperity and abundance in many cultures, from Eastern to Western. There are
several theories, but the most common is that because pigs root while moving
forward, they represent moving forward and gaining riches. (Associated with bad
luck: Cows, which stand still to eat, chickens, which scratch backward, and
lobsters, which move backward.)

Pomegranates: The round seeds represent
coins in Turkey; the vivid red color and the multitude of seeds are lucky, too.

Risotto: In the Piedmont region of Italy. Rice swells when you cook it,
so it symbolizes getting more.

- McClatchy-Tribune News