MOULTRIE, Ga. — 

So I had blackeyed peas for dinner on New Year’s Day. It’s a tradition from my childhood. It’s also a superstition from my childhood. It’s supposed to bring you luck. I also had cornbread and onions on the side.

Now we put ham hocks in our blackeyed peas because the traditional hog jowls don’t have any meat on them. Jowls are mostly fat. So let me make a point here. Some traditions are silly or downright stupid.

I guess I could make a case that the blackeyed peas thing on New Year’s Day is rather silly because I eat them all through the year. And I’m not superstitious. I don’t believe for a minute that something I eat will bring me good luck. I eat it because I like it. I’ve come to ealize tha I like too  much.

I think it’s kind of funny how we view foods. Why do we eat turkey, cranberry sauce and sweet potato pie mostly around Thanksgiving and Christmas? What if the Pilgrims had eaten bologna sandwiches on that first Thanksgiving? Would we have carried on that tradition, or would we have rewritten history to please our palates. Actually I like a bologna sandwich once in a while. I prefer it with mustard . And sometimes I add a large slice of Vidalia onion. I have no idea what kind of wine would go with that, but I imagine it would have a screw-on cap. And there wouldn’t be any dust on the bottle.

I don’t think I’ve ever had giblet gravy to go on my dressing except around Thanksgiving or Christmas. Is there a rule for this?

 I recall as a child in grammar school we were told not to eat fish and drink milk together. I’m not sure the chemical reasoning for that. One day we broke that rule, and nothing bad happened. So just like some traditions, some rules are stupid.

And why is it that foods like eggs, bacon and grits are predominantly eaten at breakfast? What if we had chili or butterbeans? Would there be a disturbance in the universe? I can tell you that the cosmos would not rumble. I’ve done both.

Yep, I once ate speckled butterbeans and cold fried chicken for breakfast. Of course I had just helped a friend unload a barn of cured tobacco in the wee hours of the morning, and those choices of fare were all we had. What do the Marines say? Adapt, improvise and overcome.

And one of my jobs in college was loading trucks for UPS. I would get off work about 5 a.m.  I would be tired and hungry, and there was a Krystal right across the street from my apartment. And so on many mornings I would order a bowl of chili and six or seven of those little square hamburgers.

Of course I’m pretty easy to please when it comes to food. I’ve had people make an awful face when I told them I like souse meat on a saltine cracker. And yet they will eat eggs? Think about it. At least souse meat comes from the front end of the hog.

Foods tend to have reputations. My guess is, if cabbage was pronounced differently (as in kabash), it would be served in the finest restaurants in Paris. And if brisket was simply called cow neck, how fewer people would order it? And what if rump roast was called … well you get my drift.

 I will continue to substitute ham hocks for hog jowls in my blackeye peas because I grew up on a farm, and I know the best thing you can do with a hog’s jaw is to throw it in the mix of making some good souse meat. Happy New Year!

(Dwain Walden is editor/publisher of The Moultrie Observer, 985-4545. Email: dwain.walden@gaflnews.com)