Traditions
What are your New Years food traditions? I was over at Jeni's and she's listed her dinner traditions and it got me thinking about our yearly food traditions and I thought I'd share my family's.
Our NY's meal actually begins about two days before with buying the ingredients, and because most of the food takes hours to cook, we try to cook the ones that required longer cooking time first. Here's a quick prep lesson for you:
Tamales-depending on how many you're making, you'll need an ample supply of dried corn husks that have soaked in warm water, rib-eyed or shank roasts and pork-either chops or pork butt. The meat is cooked slowly with seasonings of salt, pepper, jalepeno and chili colorado. The masa is made from ground hominy and lard and spread over the damp husks. The cooked meat along with optional olives is added, then it's rolled and steamed approx 15-20 mins. Best eaten right out of the steamer.
Chitlins-hog intestines, these require removing left over waste and fat before cooking. After this lengthy process the chitlins are boiled approx 4-6 hours in salted water with onion, bell pepper, garlic, black or white pepper and optional whole potatoes.
Greens-mustard or turnip-a piece of meat with pepper (my family loves serrano chiles) is boiled appox two hours or until tender and the greens added until VERY tender. Traditionally ham hocks is the meat of choice but salt pork, bacon, pork butt, beef or turkey can substitute the fatty meats.
Black-eyed peas-pretty much follow the same recipe as the greens. I personally hate black-eyed peas which shortens this narrative:-)
Seafood gumbo-consists of king crab legs, okra (yecck), chicken, red potatoes, and other assorted seafood.
Cornbread-nothing new here.
Cornish Game hen-ditto
We eat twice. The first meal is after "Watch Service" where we go to church and have a lengthy praise service and right about midnight we pray the new year in. After that it's hugging and celebrating or more praising then we come home and eat one of the above-listed items, saving the rest for the actual, very relaxed dinner. Sometimes members of the church come over and we all have the NY's meal that night and sit around and watch movies are just enjoy each other.
Whatever you're eating or not eating tonight or tomorrow, be safe and have fun!
posted by Debo Blue | Tuesday, December 30, 2008
6 Comments:
We usually do Italian food - tons and tons of pasta dishes - which is good since they are what I cook the best
Happy Happy New Year!
In reverse order, your menu items that I've not eaten:
Chitlins, Tamales (including chili colorado and hominy to my knowledge).
Black eyed peas are OK; but, you're right on the okra.
Happy New Year.
We usually stay home on New Year's Eve and PDM makes New Orleans shrimp. It is messy, but so tasty. This is the first year in many that we did not do that due to attending the bowl game. It was a disaster start to finish, so I expect that next year we will be back to staying home and eating shrimp.
Happy New Year!
You know, my family has no New Year's food tradition, unless you count getting pizza from pizza hut or someplace like that.
My dad's side of the family (from South Carolina) always has a huge pot pf collard greens and a black-eyed pea & rice dish called "Hoppin John"
I don't like working that hard for my food. For me, New Years Day is for rest and getting ready to get back to work the next day.
Our New Year's food tradition normally consist of chitlings, blackeye peas, greens, and corn bread. Simple and good. However, this year my little sister did the cooking. She can't cook. LOL. Hopefully the New Year will be a blessing anyway.
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