new year old tradition
Billy Barlow
Southerners have an inherent yen for food.
Family gatherings are always centered around the meal, and part of the ritual is the weeks of planning that take place prior to the big event. “Is Marianne making the deviled eggs?” “Is Sharon making her broccoli cheddar casserole?” “Did Cliff pick up any pusharatas?” “You know how much daddy loves coconut cake.” The answers are always yes because we have the same meals at the same holidays every year, and it never feels stale. These events aren’t the time for experimentation, only the usual suspects need apply. Every year we have the same thing, and every year we applaud each other that the macaroni, the roast beef, the gravy, and basically everything else we had was the best that had ever been made in the thirty or forty years that we’ve been doing this.
When my grandmother passed away in November, my family took solace in our memories of her and the legacy of recipes, some oral, some written, that were passed on to us. Thanksgiving will never be complete without her sweet potato pie, Christmas Eve cannot be merry without her seafood gumbo, and woe to the soul that does not have peas, cabbage, or collards and cornbread for New Year’s. My cousins and I made an unspoken pact that these recipes would henceforth be passed down to our children and kept alive at the holidays as our lives move on. The New Year’s tradition was always extra-special because she and my grandfather grew the peas, greens, and dent corn we used for many, many years. It was a humble meal that reminded us to be grateful for the fruits of the past and inspired us to be hopeful for what was to come. To miss this meal was akin to committing one of the seven deadly sins.
After living in New York City for twelve years, this is my home now; however, there are times at the holidays that I long to feel connected to my family in Mississippi. Usually this feeling can only be satisfied with a skillet of crusty cornbread, a bubbling pot of black-eyed peas, and greens, smokey and salty from country ham or bacon. This year I’ll feel grateful for the recipes and gift of cooking that my grandmother passed along, and I know that when I dip my cornbread in the potlikker on New Year’s Day that I’ll be connected in spirit with my family 1200 miles away.
