My stepmother always cooks for New Years Day. The standard items include: black eyed peas, cabbage, corn bread (real corn bread not the crap you get from Cracker Barrel), jowl bacon, fried taters, and dads infamous sweet tea.
The year was educational as my wife admitted after 15 years she didn't know exactly what a "ham hock" was. I think the actual question was something along the lines of "What part constitutes the hock?".
