You’re Invited! …to a taste of prosperity, happiness and good luck with a traditional southern new years menu!

MENU:

• Hoppin’ John – Black Eyed peas, rice and greens
• Creole Pork sandwiches
• Golden Cornbread muffins
• Bubba’s Bayou Bean Soup
• Sweet Peach Cobbler
• Peach Milkshakes
• also a Voodoo Burger….

Happy New Years Y’all

by your chef, Frank Schuchman

Frankly, every New Years Eve you’ll always find me at my favorite spot… in my kitchen, preparing a bunch of traditional Southern good luck in the New Year foods.

It’s a tradition in the South that you prepare a series of wonderful foods to enter in the New Year healthy, happy and prosperous.  Time-Honored dishes include: black eyed peas to make Hoppin’ John, plus collard greens, cornbread, pork and soups with black eyed peas, greens and ham shanks.

Black Eyed Peas – have many positive meanings, first they represent coins! Often the cook will toss in a dime into the bean pot, so when someone discovers the coin, they are blessed with a prosperous new year ahead.  Others stories tell of Sherman’s March to the Sea during the winter of 1864 – when Sherman ordered his troops to strip the lands from Atlanta to the ocean of anything that wasn’t nailed down.  When they saw black eyed pea plants, the soldiers regarded them as useless and were left behind.  Leaving thousands of Southerners with a food source for the long winter ahead, it is said that the “luck” of the Black Eyed Peas…saved the South!

Hoppin’ John, is a wonderful dish made of black eyed peas, and served over rice.  The kids in the old South were said to dance and ‘hop’ around the kitchen when they were lucky enough to get some simple beans and rice.  Rice & beans were also humbling foods available to all. They represent health, nutrition, sustenance, humility and prosperity in the year to come.

Greens – collard, turnip, beet, mustard, even cabbage works, all widely available and represent green dollar bills – another wish of prosperity to all that eat them.

Cornbread and Pork – the golden color of cornbread is another throwback to riches.  But is also a staple in every kitchen, along with the humble Pig… both represent how we all need to be a bit humble in the New Year ahead.

Ah, but there also foods that you do not want to consume fear for of what they represent!  Chickens, scratch while moving backwards, meaning you will have a set back ahead.  Actually all fowl are discouraged, because your hopes & dreams may fly away! Lobster? Yep, they too swim backwards, regret or dwelling on the past!  The color White is considered to represent death in many eastern cultures, so anything ‘white’ is not consumed around New Years!  Including eggs, white sauces, even white rice becomes ‘dirty’ rice to change its color.

I will also be teaching a FREE Southern cooking class on these recipes at the Depot in South Cle Elum on January 18th, 2011.  To register for the class, spaces are limited, please call me (509-649-3864) or email: ukcfoodgardens@gmail.com

For more info on the Café: www.thedepotcafe.com or find us on FaceBook.

I’m Frank Schuchman, local Roslyn resident, executive chef, Southern food enthusiast and an active member of Slow Food.  www.slowfoodusa.org