ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, January 1, 1997 TAG: 9701020009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 8 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: SIMONE POIRIER-BURES SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
Many people eat black-eyed peas on New Year's day to bring them good luck in the New Year. When I was growing up in Nova Scotia in a French Acadian family, we had a different custom. Early in the new year, my mother would make a cornbread - Johnny cake, she called it. Just before she put it in the oven, she would slip into it a bean, a pea, a ring, a medal, a penny and a button.
Those who found the bean and the pea in their pieces of bread would become a Queen or King; the ring meant marriage; the holder of the penny would be rich; the one who found the medal was destined for the religious life of a nun or priest; and the unlucky holder of the button would become an old bachelor or an old maid.
When my mother was a child, this custom was practiced on the feast of the Epiphany, Jan. 6, in Acadian villages throughout Nova Scotia. My mother always viewed Johnny cake day as an opportunity to tell us stories of her childhood and to remind us of our Acadian heritage.
The Acadians are distant cousins of the Cajuns. In 1755, the British expelled the Acadians from Nova Scotia, causing great hardship. Many of those expelled eventually settled in Louisiana and became the Cajuns. The present-day Acadians of Nova Scotia are descendants of those who went into hiding during the expulsion, or who returned, years later, after things had settled down.
I never made the Johnny cake while my own son was growing up. We were a long way from Nova Scotia and this custom seemed to belong to my mother's childhood more than my own. But this past New Year's, as we celebrated our 15th year in Virginia, all that changed.
We were having friends over for dinner - a couple and three children ranging in age from 11 to 18. I wanted to do something festive and original to celebrate the new year, and my mother's Johnny cake came to mind. Predictions of royalty and religious life seemed unrealistic, and talk of old maids and bachelors outdated, so I invented a more contemporary version of the old Acadian custom. Instead of a single cake, I made a dozen corn muffins, and into each I slipped an item which I had washed and then wrapped in waxed paper. Before we passed the muffins, I told everyone about the "fortunes," and watched the interest level rise. As each person found an item, I read the interpretation from a list I had prepared.
The dime signified great wealth; the German pfennig indicated foreign travel; the lima bean meant good luck; the button a wedding; the nut was thriftiness; the safety pin predicted many babies (children or grandchildren); the raisin went to a person who would be known for his or her kindness; the gold seal to someone who would win a great prize; the candy "pill" went to a future doctor (if one of the children) or to someone who would enjoy good health; the tiny sea shell meant time spent by the sea; the paper clip went to a future writer; the mint to someone who would be known for his or her sweetness.
The Johnny cake fortunes were a huge success, outshining even my lovely baked ham. When the man who got the safety pin found a dime in his second muffin, there was a lot of good-natured kidding: It was a good thing, everyone said, since he would need a lot of money for all those grandchildren he could expect. The boy who got the gold seal, who happens to be an excellent student, was assured the prize he would win was the Nobel prize. His mother, after all, had gotten the foreign coin which surely meant that she would travel to Sweden for the awards ceremony.
The ritual was so much fun that we resolved to make it an annual New Year's Day event with a different group of family friends each time.
You don't have to be an Acadian (or Cajun) to practice this lovely way to bring in the new year. If you wish, choose other small items to put in your Johnny cake muffins, or make up your own interpretations for what they signify. Keep them positive and flexible (slightly different meanings for adults and children) and this is sure to be a hit.
Simone Poirier-Bures lives in Radford and is the author of "Candyman" (Oberon Press, 1994), a novel about an Acadian family in Nova Scotia; and "That Shining Place" (Oberon, 1995), a memoir of time she spent teaching on the Greek island of Crete.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: The author hides a paper clip in a Johnny cake.by CNBSuperstition has it that the recipient's destiny then would be to
become a writer. color