For over 20 yrs now, my Texas born wife has insisted on having black eyed peas and ham for New Years Eve dinner, no reason, just tradition....I finally discovered the reason, WHY, it's a Southern tradition. In 1864, when General Sherman made his infamous "march to the sea", which ended at Savanna Georgia, his army had "procured" everything that there was to eat, both vegetable and animal. However, they left huge silo's of black eyed peas undisturbed, because that was merely animal feed and the army thought it wasn't fit for human consumption. Out of the need to survive, the people of the vanquished South ate the black eyed peas simmered with pork bones for survival on New Years 1865, thus started the tradition that still holds true.