I don't know if this is specific to our part of North Carolina (southeast coastal - and northeast South Carolina, where some of our neighbors come from), but the kind of pea here doesn't seem to be all that important. When we were living in Georgia and Alabama, it had to be black eyed peas. But here they have field peas as often as black eyed peas, and I was told today that even sweet peas would be ok. I was very happy to hear that, since I'm not terribly fond of field peas or black eyed peas. We asked if beans would be ok, and were told that peas were better.

I find it all very interesting, since I don't recall there being any foods that were traditional for my family to eat on New Years eve or day while I was growing up. In fact, I never had any particular New Years food traditions until I moved to the South to be with JtS.

One of our neighbors also has a tradition of not allowing any women to enter the house until a man has entered it on New Years day (bad luck otherwise). It's ok for women to be in the house already, but no woman can enter it until a man does. This produced some funny moments, I was told, because some of her female relatives wanted to enter the house, and she wouldn't let them until they fetched one of their male neighbors to enter the house first.