Southern Holiday Food Traditions

A little late for Christmas this year, but on time for the New Year; I wanted to post some Southern Holiday food traditions and their origins.  This time of the year holds so much meaning and much of what we do are traditions passed on from generation to generation.  Some of these traditions have origins from the War for Southern Independence and before, but over time the true meaning has been lost for some.  Where did the foods we eat come from?  Despite liberal PC Southern holiday foods are not all about soul food, but stem from many European traditions and humble Southern beginnings.

Black-eyed peas and greens:

These modest foods have monumental meaning for a  Southerner for the New Year.  The tradition of eating black-eyed peas and greens on the New Year is believed to date back to the War for Southern Independence.  Because the land and the people were devastated by Sherman’s troops who ignored black-eyed peas and greens as animal fodder it became a sustaining staple.  These enabled Confederates to survive and are now eaten to represent thanksgiving and a prosperous future.  Southern folklore is that black-eyed peas are one of the first foods eaten on New Year’s Day in recipes like Hoppin’ John.

Pecan Pie:

It is said that the French created the pecan pie, or New Orleans pecan pie.  After settling in New Orleans the native Indians familiarized them with the pecan, which they then mixed with syrup into a pie and is now often related to the holiday season.

Yule log:

Originating from a pagan tradition of burning a log at the winter solstice to signify the return of the sun this tradition was embraced by Christians who decorated the log before burning it.  Napoleon issued a decree that Paris homes must keep their chimneys closed in the winter and bakers created the buche de Noel, or the Yule log.  The tradtion was brought over by French settlers and continued in America.  Americans put their own spin on it when faced fireplace free homes in the 1970′s because of the introduction of the heat pump and would tune their televisions to a TV network who played a looped video of a burning fireplace on Christmas Eve.  This was where we got the Yule log DVD of today.

What Southern holiday food traditions do you have in your home and where did they come from?  Share with our Southern community your stories and favorite recipes.

 

The American 21st Century

This is a very interesting story from the National Review and worth while reading.  What is most interesting is the fact that just about all the ills which ebb and flow in the U.S. come from liberals in the Northeast, Chicago and West Coast from Los Angeles to Seattle.  The corruption and immorality  in DC and Wall Street is staggering.  Given the Libs have little or no real moral compass they think things will continue and time and time again, hardworking middle America largely Southerners and families from the Plain States, pull the nation back from the abyss to our more traditional heritage and values.

“The current debt, recession, wars, and political infighting have depressed Americans into thinking their country soon will be overtaken by more vigorous rivals abroad. Yet this is an American fear as old as it is improbable.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression supposedly marked the end of freewheeling American capitalism. The 1950s were caricatured as a period of mindless American conformity, McCarthyism, and obsequious company men.

By the late 1960s, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., along with the Vietnam War, had fueled a hippie counterculture that purportedly was going to replace a toxic American establishment. In the 1970s, oil shocks, gas lines, Watergate, and new rustbelts were said to be symptomatic of a post-industrial, has-been America.

At the same time, other nations, we were typically told, were doing far better.

In the late 1940s, with the rise of a postwar Soviet Union that had crushed Hitler’s Wehrmacht on the eastern front during World War II, Communism promised a New Man as it swept through Eastern Europe.

Mao Zedong took power in China and inspired Communist revolutions from North Korea to Cuba. Statist central planning was going to replace the unfairness and inefficiency of Western-style capitalism. Yet just a half-century later, Communism had either imploded or been superseded in most of the world.

By the early 1980s, Japan’s state capitalism along with emphasis on the group rather than the individual was being touted as the ideal balance between the public and private sectors. Japan Inc. continually outpaced the growth of the American economy. Then, in the 1990s, a real-estate bubble and a lack of fiscal transparency led to a collapse of property prices and a general recession. A shrinking and aging Japanese population, led by a secretive government, has been struggling ever since to recover the old magic.”

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The Political Cesspool At Graceland

TPC VIDEO: Visiting Graceland

 

Statehood For Texas

After several failed attempts to annex with the United States, due to political opposition from Northern factions, Texas was finally granted annexation on December 29, 1845.  Texas did not have the ability to enforce its Rio Grande border, however the United States military did.  Mexico dissolved their political relations with US over the annexation Texas.  It seems a shame that the Republic of Texas was dissolved, however her spirit and heritage is alive and well.  Congratulations Texas on 165 years of statehood.

 

2011 – The 175th Anniversary Of The Battle Of The Alamo

For 13 days in 1836, around 200 Texas defenders held the Alamo from over one thousand of General Santa Anna’s troops. The defenders, William Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett, would die fighting overwhelming odds for freedom.

 

Ron Paul: Social Security is not “Insurance”

Perhaps the biggest media story of 2010 was the influence of Tea Party voters on the congressional landscape.  The new congress comes to Capitol Hill with a mandate to end profligate spending and restore fiscal sanity, we are told.  But when the House and Senate convene in January, the newly elected members will face tremendous pressure to maintain spending levels for entitlement programs.  Even the most modest proposals to trim Social Security or Medicare spending will be met with howls of indignation and threats of voter revolt.  Legislators who propose any kind of means testing or increased retirement ages can expect angry visits from senior citizen lobbyists ready to fund a candidate back home who supports the status quo.
 
But millions of Americans now realize that the status quo is an illusion that will not last even another 10 or 20 years.  The federal government cannot continue to spend a trillion dollars more than it collects in revenue each year, because we are running out of creditors.  Fiscal reality is setting in, and the consequences may be grim even if Congress finds the courage to take decisive action now.
 
Courage begins with a commitment to see things as they are, rather than how we wish they were.  When it comes to Social Security, we must understand that the system does not represent an old age pension, an “insurance” program, or even a forced savings program.  It simply represents an enormous transfer payment, with younger workers paying taxes to fund benefits.  There is no Social Security trust fund, and you don’t have an “account.”  Whether you win or lose the Social Security lottery is a function of when you happened to be born and how long you live to collect benefits.  Of course young people today have every reason to believe they will never collect those benefits.
 
Notice that neither political party proposes letting people opt out of Social Security, which exposes the lie that your contributions are set aside and saved.  After all, if your contributions really are put aside for your retirement, the money is there earning interest, right?  If your money is in your “account,” what difference would it make if your neighbor chooses not to participate in the program?  The truth, of course, is that your contributions are not put aside.  Social Security is simply a tax.  Like all taxes, the money collected is spent immediately as general revenue to fund the federal government.  But no administration will admit that Social Security is nothing more than an accounting ledger with no money.  You will collect benefits only if future tax revenues materialize as hoped; the money you paid into the system is long gone.
 
My hope is that at least some members of the new Congress will cut through the distortions and see Social Security as it really is. The best way to fix the impending Social Security crisis is also the simplest: allow younger individuals to opt out of the program and use their tax savings to invest privately as they see fit.  This is the true private solution.  Your money has never been safe in the government’s hands, and it never will be.

 

EWTN Family Prayer – To be the Lord’s Instruments

 

A Little Southern Music

 

Ron Paul: Audit the Fed in 2011

Since the announcement last week that I will chair the congressional subcommittee that oversees the Federal Reserve, the media response has been overwhelming.  The groundswell of opposition to Fed actions among ordinary citizens is reflected not only in the rhetoric coming out of Capitol Hill, but also in the tremendous interest shown by the financial press.  The demand for transparency is growing, whether the political and financial establishment likes it or not.  The Fed is losing its vaunted status as an institution that somehow is above politics and public scrutiny.  Fed transparency will be the cornerstone of my efforts as subcommittee chairman.

Thanks to public pressure earlier this year, Congress did pass legislation that requires the Fed to disclose some information about its bailout of select industries and companies following the 2008 financial crisis.  So two weeks ago the Fed released data concerning more than $3 trillion of assistance it offered to banks through its bailout facilities.  After reviewing this data, however, we are left with many more questions about the Fed’s “lending”.
 
In the “Term Securities Lending Facility”, the Fed was supposed to have loaned against AAA-rated securities– yet over half of the collateral put up by banks to obtain loans had no listed credit rating. Should we assume that the Fed accepted absolute junk rated securities as collateral for loans?  Presumably these securities were so bad that they wouldn’t even publicize their credit rating.  So why should our central bank, backed up by your taxes, accept such collateral?
 
On another note, of the $1.25 trillion purchased under the Fed’s “Mortgage-Backed Securities Purchase Program,” only $877 billion in purchases have been publicized. What happened to the remaining $400 billion?
 
These kinds of limited disclosures by the Fed only underscore the need for a full and complete audit of the Fed’s financial books.  This audit should be done by an independent third party, in the same manner that public companies are audited.  The Fed should make public its balance sheet, income statement, and perhaps most importantly its cash flow statement.  It also should publicize the notes explaining those financial statements.

We seem to forget sometimes that Congress created the Fed– it is a government-created banking monopoly, and its top decision-makers are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If the Fed does not perform satisfactorily in the eyes of these politicians and their constituents, the Chairman and Governors may not be re-nominated.

In theory, Congress could even repeal the Federal Reserve Act altogether since it has the authority to do so.  Obviously Congress is within its authority to audit an organization it created by statute, and it is time to assume that responsibility. 
 
With 320 Members of Congress cosponsoring my legislation to fully audit the Fed in the 111th Congress, my hope is that we can build on our broad bipartisan coalition in 2011 and continue the push for greater Fed transparency going forward.

 

Ron Paul: Lying is Not Patriotic

 

Dec. 6, 1889 Death of Jefferson Davis

President Davis was a true defender of freedom and liberty for all and saw the dark shadow of a centralization of power in DC.

On December 6, 1889, the Christmas Season in New Orleans was saddened when Jefferson Davis died of unknown causes at the age of eighty-one. His funeral was one of the largest ever staged in the South.

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The body of Jefferson Davis laid in state at the city hall of New Orleans from midnight on December 6th to the 11th. He was dressed in Confederate gray and flowers adorned the city hall. Confederate flags and the Union flag were hung from above. Thousands of mourners came from out of town to join the residents of New Orleans to pay their respects to the man who once was the South’s beloved leader. The men saluted their former leader and the women bowed their heads in prayer. Tears filled the eyes of young people who were born at the time Jefferson Davis was president of the Confederacy.

The church bells rang throughout the city. On December 11, 1889, twenty thousand people lined the streets of New Orleans as the body of Jefferson Davis was taken, by funeral carriage, to Metairie Cemetery in the crescent city. The funeral procession included those who wore the gray during the War Between the States.

All flags flew at half mast. It is sad that the War Department of the United States did not lower the United States flag in his honor. Jefferson Davis was the only former Secretary of War who had ever been denied the honor.

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A Newspaper Article gives a further account.

Many Clergyman from the South were at the funeral to Officiate including Bishop Galleher of New Orleans and Rev. Father Darius Hubert of the Jesuit Catholic Church.

“A careful tally of the visitors shows that about 40,000 persons viewed the remains today, mostly women and children.  The crowds included in respectful attendance, all conditions of whites, blacks, ex-Confederates, ex-Federalist, even Indians and Chinamen.”

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Dec. 6, Feast Day of ST. NICHOLAS

This might be a good way push back the Secularists  and to educated our children and families about St. Nicholas and our rich Catholic traditions.  We might even suggest to our parishes who have “Breakfast with Santa” or Evening with Santa they change the name to “Breakfast with St. Nicholas”

On Dec. 6, the faithful commemorate a bishop in the early church who was known for generosity and love of children. Born in Lycia in Asia Minor around the late third or fourth century, St. Nicholas of Myra is more than just the inspiration for the modern day Santa.

As a young man he is said to have made a pilgrimage to Palestine and Egypt in order to study in the school of the Desert Fathers. On returning some years later he was almost immediately ordained Bishop of Myra, which is now Demre, on the coast of modern day Turkey.

The bishop was imprisoned during the Diocletian persecution and only released when Constantine the Great came to power and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

One of the most famous stories of the generosity of St. Nicholas says that he threw bags of gold through an open window in the house of a poor man to serve as dowry for the man’s daughters, who otherwise would have been sold into slavery.

The gold is said to have landed in the family’s shoes, which were drying near the fire. This is why children leave their shoes out by the door, or hang their stockings by the fireplace in the hopes of receiving a gift on the eve of his feast.

St. Nicholas is associated with Christmas because of the tradition that he had the custom of giving secret gifts to children. It is also conjectured that the saint, who was known to wear red robes and have a long white beard, was culturally converted into the large man with a reindeer-drawn sled full of toys because in German, his name is “San Nikolaus” which almost sounds like “Santa Claus.” The Dutch Protestants of New Amsterdam who had converted the popish saint into a Nordic (Saint Nicholas = Sint Klaes = Santa Claus).

In the later middle ages nearly four hundred churches were dedicated in his honor in England alone; and he is said to have been represented by Christian artists more frequently than any saint except our Lady. St Nicholas is the patron of children and of sailors. His intercession is sought by the shipwrecked, by those in difficult economic circumstances, and for those affected by fires. He died on December 6, 346.