It’s Christmas and we’re just a week away from welcoming 2025. I have to say, I hope this coming year brings blessings to you and your families.
To make things right, this week’s Lost Recipes gets a new flavor: that of hope for the new year. It comes courtesy of Lucille J. Goodyear, who published a “New Year’s Recipe” in the Advertiser in 1967.
Collect 12 adult months. Divide them into 30 or 31 equal days. Now add the following:
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12 parts of an undying trust in fellow man.
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11 parts of calm perseverance.
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10 parts fearless courage.
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9 parts of good hard work. (Try to omit this ingredient or you will spoil the taste.)
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Mix that all together and then add:
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7 parts of unfailing faithfulness.
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6 parts of liberal tolerance (free from all bigotry).
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5 parts of the gentlest kindness there is.
Finally, to give this mixture a good base and good taste, add the following:
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4 parts relaxing rest.
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3 parts meaningful prayer.
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2 parts of thoughtful meditation.
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1 resolution for improvement (one of your choice).
For those who really want to enjoy life, the following ingredients can be added:
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1 dash of good cheer. (No, we’re not talking about alcohol, folks.)
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1 pinch of foolishness. (Okay, there may be a little adult beverage in there.)
There you have it: the ingredients for a happy and satisfying New Year!
That’s a great start, but we also need to put something in your stomach for the new year. We have recipes for traditional dishes that might even bring you luck for 2025:
Hoppin’ John with black-eyed peas
Hoppin’ John is a black-eyed pea mixture served over rice and often accompanied by cornbread and collard greens.
In 1948, Advertiser columnist Atticus Mullin was inspired to write about Hoppin’ John after missing a meal prepared at his home by someone named Vidy.
“Lest you don’t know about Hoppin’ John and are a city person who has never heard of it, the dish consists of simply dried peas and tomatoes, cooked together with a piece of white meat. At the same time, cook a dish of rice and when done , you pour the peas and tomatoes over the rice and there you have it. But you can’t touch it if you don’t want to get fat.
The peas Mullin refers to in this dish are usually black-eyed peas, which have been augmented to resemble coins. The old saying goes that you should eat at least a dozen, one for each month of the coming year. My wife tries to get me to eat them at the beginning of every year. I’m sure Vidy and Mullin both knew that eating it would bring good luck and prosperity in the new year.
Kale Vegetables
Kale is a New Year’s meal tradition for many, especially in the South.
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This is another dish my wife tries to get me to eat this time of year. It is said that kale will bring you money for the New Year. It seems like this is one of those recipes that used to be so common that the advertiser didn’t feel the need to publish much about how to prepare it at first – just that people here liked to eat it. Either that or everyone really wanted some extra money coming their way.
Fast forward to about 20 years ago, when we published a kale recipe from Chef Victor Hendricks, courtesy of Delaware Health and Social Services. Seems like this one would make enough to serve a giant family, and maybe a few neighbors. You need:
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12 pounds of kale
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Half cup of extra virgin olive oil
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2 tablespoons kosher salt
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Beef base, to taste (optional)
Clean the greens and rinse them at least 4 times. Remove the bottom stems. Drain the kale well and break the leaves into quarters. Bring 6.5 liters of water to the boil in a very large pan, reduce the temperature and add all the ingredients except the vegetables to the water. Bring it back to a boil and start adding the kale. If they don’t fit all at once, add more greenery as space allows. Reduce heat to low and let everything cook together for 1 to 1.5 hours. The cooking time depends on the quality and harvest time of the vegetables.
Cornbread
A fresh pan of cornbread is a tasty golden addition to a New Year’s meal.
Now we come to my favorite part of the New Year’s meal ensemble, the cornbread that represents gold.
Cornbread is something I make for my family a few times a year, as a side dish in a cast iron skillet, or in a large saucepan to cut up and use in cornbread dressing. Fair warning: we tend to like our cornbread a little sweet, so I add 1/2 cup of sugar to the mix.
The Advertiser supported me in this in 1916, when their women’s page gave the following recipe:
Mix two cups cornmeal, 2 cups buttermilk and 2 cups flour. Add half a cup of sugar, a quarter cup of lard, 2 teaspoons of baking soda dissolved in a little water and a little salt. Bake at 350 degrees until golden brown and center is firm. Test it with a toothpick or knife to make sure it is fully cooked.
You can take the same batter and bake crispy Johnny cakes, which in my opinion are even tastier. A few years ago I had the opportunity to try some freshly prepared by Debbie Deese at Red’s Little School House Restaurant in Grady.
For over 100 years, sweet corn roll recipes like mine were condemned by some outspoken people. Among them was Colonel Henry Watterson – a Kentucky journalist and former Confederate soldier, as well as the son of a Tennessee congressman. The man was passionate about his sugar-free Southern cornbread.
“Cornbread with sugar in it was an idea born of the devil, planted in New England and sent south by our enemies,” the colonel wrote in the Advertiser in 1921. his birth.”
Personally, I don’t think civilization will fall because of a little sugar. I hope your 2025 is as sweet as my cornbread.
IF YOU TRY
If you decide to try one of these lost recipes, send us a photo and a note on how it went. Send it in an email titled “Lost Recipes” to Montgomery Advertiser reporter Shannon Heupel bee sheupel@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: Lost Recipes: Serve Happiness with These New Year’s Dishes
