Start the New Year with a dish of good luck! Have yourself some "Hoppin' John"!! A staple in the Southern diet for over 300 years, black-eyed peas have long been associated with good luck. A dish of peas is a New Year's tradition in most areas of the South, thought to bring luck and prosperity for the new year. http:/.../southernfood.about.com/library/weekly/aa123198.htm According to one source, each black-eyed pea eaten brings a day of good luck.
            The planting of crops of black-eyed peas was promoted by George Washington Carver because, as a legume, it adds nitrogen to the soil and has high nutritional value. The "good luck" traditions of eating black-eyed peas at Rosh Hashana, the ...Jewish New Year, are recorded in the Babylonian Talmud (compiled ~500 CE) "Hoppin' John", made of black-eyed peas, rice, and pork, is a traditional dish of Southern United States. Corn bread also often accompanies this meal. Texas caviar, another traditional dish in the American South, is made from black-eyed peas marinated in Italian salad dressing and chopped garlic, and served cold. Bobbie Gentry's 1967 ballad "Ode to Billie Joe": Papa said to Mama as he passed around the black-eyed peas, "Well, Billy Joe never had a lick of sense; pass the biscuits please."The Black Eyed Peas are a six-time Grammy Award-winning American hip-hop group from Los Angeles.

They say that black eyed peas bring prosperity...we could all use some of that..and start by supporting the black eyed pea farmers and get some today...some stores have prominent displays of black eyed peas.