A Cajun New Year’s tradition to pass along

Karlos Knott | karlos@bayoutechebrewing.com

Pappa was one of the last holdouts.

Growing up, every New Year’s Day we would all get together at my grandparents’ home in Bayou Portage. Like all of their French-speaking neighbors, our grandparents would slowly simmer a big pot of black-eyed peas promising next year’s good luck. There also was one of smothered cabbage, guaranteed to bring us money, also on Grandma’s kitchen table.

What separated us from most of the other families getting together that day was that we had presents for one another!

Pappa made sure of that. It was a centuries old French tradition he wanted continued.

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Funny, people of his parents’ generation would not have thought those presents odd at all. New Year’s Day was planned around a large midday meal with the accompanying black eyed peas and cabbage, and multiple dessert dishes and demitasses of café noir. After the extended meal and multiple exchanges of “Bonne Année” presents were exchanged among the members of most Cajun families.

I just Googled “Cajuns exchanging New Years’ gifts” and found from the couple of hits I got that this Cajun tradition was one that was brought over from rural France, and was practiced there since Roman times.

Pappa did not like the way most of his neighbors (and his own grandchildren) were forgetting this old custom. To him, we were adopting the ways of Les Americans (what he called English speakers, a term almost as insulting as Yankees). You see, we were getting presents on Christmas – and to the older folks that practice was sacrilegious on one of the most holy days of the year.

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On Christmas, past generations in Acadiana would stay up for midnight Mass, and then prepare for a thoughtful and quiet day celebrating our Saviors’ birth– and a very large midday meal in his honor.

The last 20 or so years my father has renewed the New Years’ custom his father so stubbornly held on to. My wife and I still exchange presents on Christmas – we have a son and daughter who expect it. And they look forward to New Years at my Mom and Dad’s house (and a second round of gifts for them), continuing a Cajun tradition that goes back centuries.

I received a call at the brewery yesterday from a lady in Broussard looking to order some pint glasses. We chatted a while, and I told her I’d get them shipped but I doubted they would make it for Christmas. “No worries,” she said. “I’m buying these to give as presents for New Year’s. Our family still celebrates it the old time way.” Pappa would be pleased.

What to serve with the black-eyed peas and cabbage? In Louisiana, the cabbage will be smothered with as much meat as there is cabbage. There’s going to be a bit of garlic, cayenne and black pepper in there, and come to think of it, the black-eyed peas will be rich with pork fat and Cajun seasonings as well. It will take a pretty bold beer to stand up to these dishes.

Bayou Teche Knott’s Berry Beer

Our grandparents owned a little country store in the Cajun town of Bayou Portage, Louisiana, where blackberry bushes grew wild. We’d pick bushels for preserves, ice cream, and sweet dough pies. At Bayou Teche Brewing, we aged blackberries with ale in French wine barrels. This French style farmhouse ale hints of blackberries and oaked sauvignon blanc. As a bonus – that’s a photo of my grandparents on the label – that’s Pappa, who rebelliously held on to Cajun traditions.

Tin Roof Juke Joint IPA

An IPA that is not an over-the-top hop bomb is always a great beer to pair with bold Cajun flavors. Tin Roof’s Juke Joint IPA is perfect with all of the black-eyed peas and cabbage you’re likely to be eating soon. This India Pale Ale has a solid malt backbone, huge floral and citrus aroma, and a nice strong bitterness up front that fades and does not leave you puckered. You may not get rich from eating cabbage, or have good luck from the peas, but a can of Juke Joint will bring you the hop aroma and bitterness you need to start the New Year.

Karlos Knott is the president of Bayou Teche Brewing. When not brewing beer, drinking beer or reading about drinking beer, Karlos enjoys playing his Cajun accordion, cooking for and spending time with his family and cruising rural Acadiana highways on his Harley Springer looking for the elusive perfect link of boudin.