Across the South tomorrow many households will sit down to black-eyed peas and collard greens on the table, often seasoned with pork and a side of cornbread. The culinary tradition is rooted in history and symbolize bright days ahead.
“I’ve always heard that the reason behind eating black-eyed peas was to have good luck, while the reason for eating collard greens was to have wealth,” Jon Sanders, director of the Center for Food, Power and Life at the John Locke Foundation, told the Carolina Journal. “I’ve heard different reasons about luck and peas, but the reason behind the collards is that they are green like our paper money.”
According to the late John Egerton, southern food historian and author of the University of North Carolina Press’ Southern Food, At Home, On the Road, in History, black-eyed peas are commonly associated with coins or pennies, reflecting hopes for financial luck in the year ahead. Collard greens, or sometimes turnip or mustard greens, symbolize paper money and economic stability. Cornbread, is said to represent gold and themes of abundance. Pork symbolizes progress and optimism because pigs root forward rather than backward. Some even cook a whole hog head on New Year’s Day for good luck.
The origins of these culinary traditions are rooted in African American tradition and Civil War history. According to some agriculture historians, black-eyed peas were left behind when Union troops stripped fields in the South during the Civil War, thinking they were animal feed. They became a primary food source during the aftermath of the war and came to symbolize survival and hope for the future.
Together, these foods form a ritualized meal that, as Egerton noted, blends culinary tradition with cultural optimism at the start of a new year. They are particularly significant in North Carolina, where agriculture is the state’s No. 1 industry, generating $111.1 billion annually, with pork being one of the state’s largest agricultural commodities.
According to data from the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina (EDPNC), this year, North Carolina poultry exports have increased from $234.2 million to more than $250 million, or approximately 6.8%, YTD through August, According to the Producer Price Index for Processed Foods and Feeds, the prices received by US producers for processed turkey rose 8.9% between August 2024 and August 2025.
North Carolina is also the third largest producer in the nation for collard greens behind South Carolina and Georgia. In 2022, more than 1,300 acres were harvested across 325 farms, according to USDA data.
In fact, The State You’re In has an annual Sexiest Collard Farmer Contest, 2025’s winner was Phylicia Barker of Olusanya Farm, near Stovall; 2024’s winner was Patrick Brown of Brown Family Farms, near Hendersonville; 2023’s winner was Lee Berry of the Berry Patch, near Ellerbe.
North Carolina ranks sixth in the nation as the largest producer of cowpeas, black-eyed peas, and crowder peas. In 2022, 784 acres were harvested across 228 farms, according to USDA data.