Tag Archives: new years

Collard Greens and Black Eyed Peas for New Year’s

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 3rd, 2013
Primary Language: English

This is a New Year’s tradition practiced by my informant and her family every year.

“If you have collard greens on January first then you’ll make a lot of money, maybe because they’re both green. Similarly, if you have black eyed peas, then you’ll have luck throughout the rest of the year. And it has to be on January first. And then you just have meat, that’s not symbolic but you need something to go with collard greens and the black eyed peas. My grandmother told me that, and so she cooks for us for every new year.”

The tradition of eating black eyed peas for luck is also a Jewish tradition, and goes back for many centuries. It’s popular in the American south, probably brought there by the Jews and adopted by the society at large. As the informant says, collard greens are also a common New Year’s food thought to bring wealth in the coming year, as they resemble American bills. Both foods are exceptionally common in the American south (thus allowing most people to partake in the tradition without causing undue budgetary stress), which is where my informant’s family lives. The emphasis on it being January 1st also reflects the notion of its importance as the beginning of a new unit of time, in a liminal period where anything could happen and one could presumably set the tone for the next stage in life (ie, the new year).

Black eyed peas for New Year

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 7, 2013
Primary Language: English

“On New Year’s, we eat black eyed peas and greens.”

 

My informant is of Italian Catholic extraction and grew up in Chicago. Despite her family having no connection to the South, they eat the traditionally Southern dish of black eyed peas and greens on New Year’s. This is an indication of the way that culture spreads throughout the United States. Both foods are traditionally lucky to eat, especially as a way to help ring in the new year. My informant wasn’t sure what the significance of the foods is; she just knows that it’s lucky and they do it every year.

“Duk Guk on New Year’s”

Nationality: Korean-American
Age: 52
Occupation: Finance & Administrative Manager
Residence: San Pablo, CA
Performance Date: March 2013
Primary Language: Korean
Language: English

            Born in an agricultural town in South Korea, the informant shared the tradition of cooking and eating  떡국 (duk guk), a rice cake soup that sometimes includes dumplings called 만두 (mandu), on New Year’s day, or 설날(Seollal). The informant explained that her first memory eating the soup was at the age of three, and it has since been so ingrained in her lifestyle that she has carried the practice over to America, where she and her family enjoy the delicacy each New Year. As the informant spoke about the yearly tradition, she was in the process of cooking dinner for her family, and she added that this felt natural to her because cooking in groups was often a social experience as well in Korea, when women could talk freely with one another.  

 

            We always eat duk guk on New Year’s. We always eat it for breakfast New Year’s morning. The tradition of making mandu in our family began when I was, eh. . .maybe seven or eight. It was always the women. The men usually gathered together in another room and drank and played cards. Duk guk is part of our inherited culture. Duk is, you know, long and a little thicker. . .it’s like a water hose, and when they actually make duk in a big kitchen or factory it’s almost as long as a water hose, too (the ones I bought at the market for you and your brother when you were kids are just always already cut up). But, when I was little we would take the really long duk home and after it hardened a little bit we would cut up in the oval shape that you see in the duk guk. The long duk symbolizes long life, which is why we eat it on New Year’s. Duk guk is made with beef broth, which we make first, and then we add the duk, and then the mandu, and then a little bit of egg, and finally we sprinkle thinly sliced seaweed over the top.

            The mandu that we put in the duk guk is a fun activity that allowed us ladies to get together. We make it in an assembly line style, and we assign who does what part depending on what they are good at―some people are better at mixing, or putting the stuffing in, or folding the dumplings. Making the mandu is where the cooks can get more artistic; each person might make them a little differently, and if you’ve been making mandu together for a long time you can tell who made what dumpling. During the mandu-making process we might be gossiping, or telling funny stories, that’s how it’s always been.

            The funny thing is that, in Korea, once you eat duk guk on New Year’s day, everyone gets one year older. So in Korea, you do not age on your birthday. . . everyone ages on New Year’s day. You might still have a small celebration on your actual birth date, but you earn one more year only on New Year’s Day. You get a year when you’re born―you’re already one year old, and then you get another year when you eat the duk. That’s why your Korean age and American age might be a little different. Oh, and didn’t I tell you? . . everyone eats duk guk.

 

            The informant’s description elegantly explains the reasoning behind why duk, the rice cake, is eaten on New Year’s. The combination of its symbolism of long life paired with the process of aging collectively on New Year’s in Korea shows that, in Korean culture, perhaps there is a muted emphasis on individual importance (i.e. a big birthday celebration for each person). This value is seen again in the dumpling-making process, as each person contributes to one dumpling, only able to express their individualism and talent in little, creative ways. The women, quite literally, expend equal amounts of energy during the cooking process, and thus the food presented to the men and rest of the family is a undoubtedly collective effort. The informant also emphasizes several times that “everyone” eats the dumpling soup, implying the link to a national identity when Koreans eat duk guk.

Haft Sín: A Part of the Persian New Year

Nationality: Persian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 1, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Farsi

Contextual Data: I had been hanging out with one of my friends and we got into a conversation about our different cultures and religious backgrounds—he’s a Persian who practices the Baha’i faith. And at one point, he mentioned the Persian New Year, which had just occurred the previous month on March 20th. He grew up in the United States and his whole family (including his grandparents and his extended family) lives here, but they still partake in the these New Years’ traditions. I asked him to tell me more about it — about any specific characteristics or rituals — and the following is an exact transcript of what he described.

“The only ritual I can think of in New Years celebration is the arrangement of what’s called the Haft Sín — Sín is equivalent to the letter “S” in the English alphabet and Haft means “seven.” So what Iranians do in their homes is they create… um…kind of like a banquet of different items beginning with that letter that all have a symbol. Like síb, which means “apple” in Farsi, is a symbol of health and life. And sekhé, which is like a gold coin, is a symbol of wealth. And…um… I think sekhé—No… Seer, which is garlic, is like a symbol of fertility. Or… There’s—There’s like a lot of these different things. I think that there’s apples, there’s goldfish, there’s painted eggs…Yeah. [Laughs.]”

– End Transcript –

A few other items that can be a part of the Haft Sín, which my informant later mentioned to me, are: sumac, which is a spice; sír, which is vinegar; sangak, which is wheat bread; and then sometimes a bed of wheatgrass, which the family has grown. When I asked him about what he thought the significance of it was, he replied, “It’s just like, if another Persian came into your house around that time, they would like, look at your Haft Sín and be like ‘Oh, that’s nice’— Kind of like the Christmas tree for Christians, in a way.”

My informant mentioned that in Persian culture, Naw Rúz falls on the first day of spring (usually March 21st), which he says relates to the symbolic idea of spring as “the beginning of life.” So in thinking about Naw Rúz as a celebration of this new life, as well as the liminal nature of the New Year (the in-between phase when people pass from one year to the next), it seems as though the Haft Sín is an important way of ushering in luck for the “new life” ahead — good luck related to health, wealth, fertility, and so on. My friend mentioned that the arrangement varies from family to family, and that the arrangement can exceed seven items, which suggests that it can be a more individual reflection of what a family is hoping to be blessed with in the upcoming year. The arrangement therefore also seems like an important way of bringing together the family.

Given that my informant and his family live in the United States, part of the reason for partaking in this tradition could also be as a means of holding on to their Persian culture.

Annotation: http://www.asia.si.edu/events/nowruz/haft-sin.asp
This offers another description of the Haft Sín table, listing additional items, as well as alternative symbolic meanings to the items. This again alludes to the way that the arrangement can vary from family to family, based on the faith of the family and on what they might be looking forward to in the New Year. Social media also presents a great way to see this variation—searching the hashtag “#haftsin” on Instagram or Tumblr pulls up photos from many different users, illustrating the different ways that Iranian families arrange their tables, as well as what items they include in the arrangement.

Tradition: New Year’s Day good luck

Nationality: African American
Age: Harris- 99, Millsap-73
Occupation: Retired: Harris- former maid, Millsap- former office worker
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 31, 2013
Primary Language: English

Note: My informants are originally from Mississippi.

Good luck for the New Year

Recipe for Black-eyed peas

Black Peas

Hammock

Rice

Cornbread

Boil the peas with hammock for 2 hours. Pour over rice with cornbread.

According to my informant it is a common Southern tradition to eat black eyed peas on New Year’s Day. Its supposed to be good luck, my informant didn’t know why. All the cooking is done on the day of the New Year’s Day. My informant loves this tradition. She does this every year. She says she learned it from her mother.

I would like to know why black-eyed are specifically good luck. My family has made this dish before but there nothing particularly special about it. It was just dinner. Maybe the eye shapes are what make them so lucky. Eyes have been put on good luck charms in various places because they ward off the evil eye. Although the evil eye folk belief is not that common in the states so maybe there’s not much of a connection there.