Hoppin' John: A Southern New Year's tradition

Photo byTiffany Means

Traditions differ all over America, and that's no different for New Year's Day dinner. According to Delish, most folks in the North, Central and Western U.S. prepare a dinner of pork and sauerkraut, Irish-Americans enjoy buttered bread, German-Americans sometimes follow a tradition of "Berliner" doughnuts. German-Americans also ring in the New Year with a big soft pretzel to symbolize good luck, health, and prosperity in the year ahead, according to History.com.

Down here in the South, folks traditionally enjoy hoppin' John.

Also known as Carolina peas and rice, hoppin John is a dish served mainly with black-eyed peas and rice, chopped onion, sliced bacon, and seasoned with salt. Some recipes use ham hock or fat back instead of bacon, and some folks also add green peppers and spices.

Smaller than black-eyed peas, field peas are sometimes used here in the South Carolina Lowcountry, but it's usually with black eyed peas.

In the South, eating Hoppin' John on New Year's Day is thought to bring a prosperous year filled with luck.

The peas are symbolic of pennies or coins, and a coin is sometimes added to the pot or left under the dinner bowls. Collard greens, mustard greens, turnip greens, chard, cabbage and other similar leafy green vegetables are served along with it to further add to the wealth, since they are the color of money.

Pork is used because pigs root forward while chickens scratch backwards therefore, pork symbolizes growth and progress through the year.

Another traditional food, cornbread, can also be served to represent wealth, because it's the color of gold.

Nobody knows for sure how it got its name, but History.com tells us that some folks say that an old, hobbled man nicknamed "hoppin' John" became known for selling peas and rice on the streets of Charleston, South Carolina. Others say slave children hopped around the table in eager anticipation of the dish. Most food historians think the name derives from a French term for dried peas, “pois pigeons.”

Whatever it may be that your traditional New Year's Day dinner consists of, here's to a healthy and prosperous 2024.