New Year's 2025, Good Luck/Bad Luck Foods and Crazy Leftover To-Dos!

Could There be Gold in that Pork Roast and Doom in the Chicken? New Year's Foods to eat for an extra plateful of good luck.
Welcome to 2025! In this special New Year’s edition of Family Tree Food & Stories, Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely kick off the year with some quirky traditions.🎉
Did you know eating chicken 🐔 on New Year’s could potentially give you a bowl of bad luck? Or that a sauerkraut shred might be the key to riches? In this episode of Family Tree Food & Stories, we're spilling the beans (and the sauerkraut) on bizarre New Year’s food superstitions that might get you to reconsider your midnight menu.
But don’t worry—there’s also some good luck on the horizon or in the kitchen! And what's a New Year's celebration without fireworks or a fire? . . seriously! This one includes that old and stale gingerbread house collecting dust on your island countertop.
There's a lot more in store in this next episode of Family Tree, Food & Stories, so grab your favorite drink, kick back, and join us for an entertaining end to 2024 and a delicious start, one story, one laugh, and one lucky bite at a time to 2025.
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About Your Hosts: Nancy May and Sylvia Lovely are the powerhouse team behind Family Tree, Food & Stories, an Omnimedia company that celebrates the rich traditions and connections that everyone has around food, friends, and family meals together. Nancy, an award-winning business leader, author, podcaster, and Sylvia, a visionary author, lawyer, and former CEO, combine their expertise to bring captivating stories rooted in history, heritage, and food. Together, they weave stories that blend history, tradition, and the love of food, where generations connect and share intriguing mealtime stories and kitchen foibles.
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Happy New Year, Sylvia.
Nancy May:
Can you believe it's 2025?
Sylvia Lovely:
No.
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh, no.
Sylvia Lovely:
But, you know, there's some good things about 2025.
Sylvia Lovely:
too much to go into, but you and I have had our challenges, but, hey, we're ready.
Sylvia Lovely:
Let's go for it, okay?
Sylvia Lovely:
Hey, one thing I wanted to tell you, though, this is the only time
Sylvia Lovely:
of the year you want to be a loser.
Nancy May:
yeah.
Sylvia Lovely:
That weight you put on with all that peanut butter
Sylvia Lovely:
fudge, which is my all time favorite.
Nancy May:
Oh, I'm not a big fudge fan, but my dad was a fudge fan.
Nancy May:
And transporting fudge is not easy.
Nancy May:
Like you pack it up and it either gets smooshed or it melts, or it looks
Nancy May:
like something you'd wipe off the bottom of your shoe when you're done.
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh, my mother in law made the best.
Sylvia Lovely:
I mean, it's just that right creaminess, you know?
Nancy May:
maybe Grandmama made better fudge than the
Nancy May:
kind that you get at the store
Sylvia Lovely:
I think so.
Nancy May:
it's all sugary and crystallizing.
Sylvia Lovely:
No, no, no.
Sylvia Lovely:
Her's was powerful.
Sylvia Lovely:
Okay, yeah, let's go for it.
Sylvia Lovely:
Superstitions, now we've covered that a lot
Nancy May:
We, we have covered superstitions, but I got a few new ones
Nancy May:
for you because, after drinking a few glasses of champagne, well, maybe more
Nancy May:
than a few glasses of champagne, I think we need some good luck to get us out
Nancy May:
of the hangover from the old year and into something new for the new year.
Sylvia Lovely:
yeah.
Sylvia Lovely:
And what you're not supposed to do, maybe,
Nancy May:
Yeah, what you're not supposed to do.
Nancy May:
You're not supposed to drink too much champagne.
Sylvia Lovely:
drink wine.
Sylvia Lovely:
There's never too much wine.
Nancy May:
Well, That's true.
Nancy May:
A little bubble goes a long way.
Nancy May:
So I've got a few foods that are kind of weird that I never even thought of.
Nancy May:
Things that we eat every day.
Nancy May:
Well, maybe not every day, but the superstition on things that you
Nancy May:
shouldn't eat, because you don't want to add good, or well, you don't
Nancy May:
want to add bad luck to the new year, is you shouldn't eat chicken.
Nancy May:
Like, isn't that weird?
Sylvia Lovely:
No way.
Nancy May:
Yeah,
Sylvia Lovely:
live on chicken.
Nancy May:
I know, right?
Nancy May:
Chicken and fish and everything else, but chicken specifically, and you know why?
Sylvia Lovely:
Why?
Nancy May:
Well, apparently, I've never owned a chicken, but we've
Sylvia Lovely:
No, and I hope never to.
Nancy May:
Yeah, I might want to do that for some fresh eggs, but even still,
Nancy May:
they say that chickens scratch backwards.
Nancy May:
I never, like, I
Sylvia Lovely:
No, I'm trying to visualize a chicken.
Nancy May:
Right, I never observed a chicken behavior patterns.
Sylvia Lovely:
never saw that as being on my life plan to observe a chicken.
Sylvia Lovely:
But now you're going to make me want to do it.
Sylvia Lovely:
By the way, you're the one that can have chickens now, because you've
Sylvia Lovely:
got a country kind of place that
Nancy May:
Yeah, we got a couple acres that we're moving into fairly soon,
Nancy May:
actually, about this recording, we should be moving in a fairly soon, but
Nancy May:
as of the new year, we should be there.
Nancy May:
So you will be
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, you know, do you know how many varieties of chickens there are?
Sylvia Lovely:
It's pretty amazing.
Nancy May:
I certainly can't count them on one hand for
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh, I mean, and it's like the meat is supposed to be different.
Sylvia Lovely:
I'm just like, chicken, give me chicken, except for the new year.
Sylvia Lovely:
I'll wait a couple of months.
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh,
Nancy May:
that does this.
Nancy May:
And there's some funny chickens, I grew up riding horses and you're in horse
Nancy May:
country, but there are these chickens that have these poofy heads and feet.
Nancy May:
And when my husband saw them for the first time, they used to run
Nancy May:
around the barns where I was.
Nancy May:
He would call them draft chickens, like draft horses, because they
Nancy May:
had the feathers on their feet.
Sylvia Lovely:
how funny.
Nancy May:
chickens, because they kind of look like poodles.
Nancy May:
So next time anybody listening sees these chickens that have poofy hair and
Nancy May:
poofy feet, you just either think that they're poodle chickens or draft chickens.
Sylvia Lovely:
to ask, get a little off subject, but did
Sylvia Lovely:
they hang around the horses?
Sylvia Lovely:
Was it a special breed because they got along with horses
Sylvia Lovely:
or horse whisperer birds?
Sylvia Lovely:
I don't know.
Nancy May:
I don't think so.
Nancy May:
I think these chickens were kind
Sylvia Lovely:
Just came
Nancy May:
they were kind of elitist chickens.
Nancy May:
They were the fancy chickens that the horse owners had and they just, they
Nancy May:
were cool to have around the barn.
Nancy May:
But yeah, they knew how to get away from underfoot pretty
Nancy May:
quickly, but they were pretty cool.
Nancy May:
So chicken is one thing, lobsters, lobster is another one.
Nancy May:
Now, if you're from New England, oh my god, I
Sylvia Lovely:
That's a big deal.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah.
Nancy May:
I can't think of not eating lobster on New Year's, but lobsters
Nancy May:
or those kind of, you know, spiny crustaceans, they also, they move
Nancy May:
backwards, and they move sideways.
Nancy May:
So, the whole idea here is that you don't want to move things backwards
Nancy May:
when you want to go forward in the New
Sylvia Lovely:
You want to go forward.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah.
Nancy May:
Yeah, right, and you don't want to go sideways.
Nancy May:
So you don't want to, I wouldn't say put off doing things, but
Nancy May:
you, you don't want to create bad luck that whatever you're doing
Sylvia Lovely:
No.
Sylvia Lovely:
Tread lightly.
Sylvia Lovely:
Tread very lightly.
Sylvia Lovely:
I think that's good.
Sylvia Lovely:
Hey, what can we do, though, in 2025?
Sylvia Lovely:
What's some new stuff we can do,
Nancy May:
Well, I'm going to add, there's some good luck stuff.
Nancy May:
On the moving forward, it's good luck to eat pork because the pigs,
Nancy May:
again, I have never become friendly with a pig, actually burrow forward.
Nancy May:
So they, they root or the
Nancy May:
rut
Sylvia Lovely:
Root.
Sylvia Lovely:
So does my dog.
Nancy May:
Yeah,
Sylvia Lovely:
I don't
Nancy May:
my dog does the same thing.
Nancy May:
Hey, you know how to stop your dog from burrowing in a hole?
Sylvia Lovely:
Howl, Howl, Uh,
Nancy May:
from a dog trainer.
Nancy May:
You take some of their dog poops and you put it in the hole where they're
Nancy May:
digging and then you cover it over so that when they dig, surprise,
Nancy May:
you don't want to dig into that.
Nancy May:
But it does work.
Nancy May:
We tried that.
Nancy May:
It's like, oh, the problem is getting the poop in the hole.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, Well,
Nancy May:
But I guess, lucky pork.
Nancy May:
Good for you, I certainly wouldn't want to be the pig because I don't
Nancy May:
consider that too lucky for the pig.
Sylvia Lovely:
Hey, You Know, It's Supposed To Be Great Animals, So,
Nancy May:
They're supposed to be very Smart,
Sylvia Lovely:
They, An Octopus, And every time we serve octopus in our
Sylvia Lovely:
restaurant, I'm always like, But it's such an intelligent animal.
Sylvia Lovely:
I am such a bleeding heart.
Sylvia Lovely:
I
Nancy May:
animal like an octopus that can change its outfit at the blink of an eye.
Nancy May:
It has multiple brains.
Nancy May:
God knows I need more than one
Sylvia Lovely:
I know.
Nancy May:
It's got all those arms so it can suck good things in
Nancy May:
and like, get away the bad stuff.
Nancy May:
And then it's got a beak.
Nancy May:
It can bite anything it wants to get rid of.
Sylvia Lovely:
I love it.
Sylvia Lovely:
I want to grow up and be an octopus or something.
Sylvia Lovely:
I could.
Nancy May:
and it chops off an arm.
Nancy May:
I guess it goes back, but I can't imagine that's got to hurt.
Nancy May:
Yeah.
Nancy May:
Octopi,
Sylvia Lovely:
There's a movie or a documentary about that.
Sylvia Lovely:
Anyway.
Nancy May:
Oh, there's a great book on that, but we can talk about
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, we'll talk about that later.
Nancy May:
Sauerkraut's another one that's kind of weird.
Nancy May:
Do you know about sauerkraut?
Sylvia Lovely:
I love sauerkraut.
Sylvia Lovely:
I do know that.
Sylvia Lovely:
Good for me.
Sylvia Lovely:
One of the few things that I could eat just tons of that's so good for you.
Nancy May:
Well, it's hard to get really good sauerkraut, right?
Nancy May:
Because some of it's too vinegary and then it's got sort of a nice, you
Nancy May:
know, in the city up in well, I say the city of New York, because that's
Nancy May:
where my point of origination was.
Nancy May:
If you want to call it that is they call them the dirty water hot dogs that were
Nancy May:
on the corners that people would sell in the carts and they always had sauerkraut.
Nancy May:
But the sauerkraut for some reason in those hot dog vendors was always so good.
Nancy May:
It was mild and it was gentle and it was just, it was always like the best.
Nancy May:
And when you buy it and make it yourself, it doesn't seem to be the best, but
Nancy May:
there's a German tradition that's supposed to help you create wealth and
Nancy May:
riches all related around sauerkraut.
Sylvia Lovely:
I'm all in.
Sylvia Lovely:
Tell me.
Nancy May:
tell me about it.
Nancy May:
Right.
Nancy May:
And the weird thing is that you're supposed to create a wish for every shred
Nancy May:
of cabbage in the sauerkraut that you eat.
Nancy May:
But, who counts the string of cabbage and sauerkraut?
Sylvia Lovely:
Uh, no, no, no, no, no.
Sylvia Lovely:
I'll just eat it.
Sylvia Lovely:
And hope for the best in times of luck.
Nancy May:
I do think that's kind of weird.
Nancy May:
But
Sylvia Lovely:
But I do love sauerkraut.
Sylvia Lovely:
That's kind of unusual.
Sylvia Lovely:
You know, I remember as a kid I loved it.
Nancy May:
yeah, maybe at the stroke of midnight while you're drinking your
Nancy May:
wine and I'm drinking my champagne, we'll count the sauerkraut shreds.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah.
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh, yeah.
Sylvia Lovely:
So, New Year's.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah.
Sylvia Lovely:
Wow.
Sylvia Lovely:
what else we got?
Nancy May:
we got resolutions
Sylvia Lovely:
And what, what can we do?
Sylvia Lovely:
We can start a new tradition, since we're all about tradition, right?
Sylvia Lovely:
you have your old ones, you could try a recipe that you've never had before,
Nancy May:
right?
Nancy May:
Or you could try to like something that you didn't eat I am not a fan of spinach.
Nancy May:
I will eat it in lettuce, fresh, but my mom used to force us to eat spinach.
Nancy May:
Well, sorry, mom, maybe force is a strong word, but she'd always
Nancy May:
put it on the plate saying, it's good for you, it's good for you.
Nancy May:
And it was that frozen brick spinach
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, oh
Nancy May:
get like boiled to, I would say, excuse me, listeners, if this
Nancy May:
grosses you out, but it reminds me of snot going down the back of your throat.
Nancy May:
Not that that happened that often, but like when you get that cold
Nancy May:
and that runny, oh, disgusting.
Nancy May:
So I could think it was like green snot.
Nancy May:
My husband loves it.
Nancy May:
You can have your snotty spinach.
Nancy May:
I'll put it in a salad.
Nancy May:
Thank you very much.
Nancy May:
so I guess One of my resolutions will be to try to, to like, or try spinach
Sylvia Lovely:
I just try, and I'll try to eat more green stuff, because
Sylvia Lovely:
it's I know it's good for you.
Nancy May:
you know, it's really interesting, talking about the produce
Nancy May:
aisle, is that all this stuff was, growing up, our parents didn't do this.
Nancy May:
It was sort of, you, well, my mom, My mom had this pot that she was,
Nancy May:
I would consider her favorite pot.
Nancy May:
It was an aluminum pot.
Nancy May:
I'm probably going to die of aluminum poisoning at some point in my life.
Nancy May:
But anyway, everything cooked in this one particular pot, whether it was
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah.
Sylvia Lovely:
She
Nancy May:
whether it.
Nancy May:
was oiled, whatever it was the aluminum pot.
Nancy May:
It's that texture of that, whatever it was, but we didn't
Nancy May:
do those things growing up.
Nancy May:
I think it's kind of cool that we have all these new foods and the traditions that we
Nancy May:
can do to pull out new recipes and ideas and things that we can share together.
Sylvia Lovely:
Well, here's a leftover idea.
Sylvia Lovely:
when I was in Duluth, Minnesota with my son, he and I cooked Thanksgiving
Sylvia Lovely:
dinner and you had the turkey carcass that was leftover, right?
Sylvia Lovely:
Well, I always throw the thing away.
Sylvia Lovely:
I shouldn't.
Sylvia Lovely:
I go in there and he's got a giant pot and he's cut up the,
Sylvia Lovely:
or broken up the The carcass, and he's boiling it with vegetables.
Sylvia Lovely:
It's and the consistency was like a thin soup, and it's bone broth,
Sylvia Lovely:
but you know, all of that stuff.
Sylvia Lovely:
And, and then he's going to use it like all year long.
Sylvia Lovely:
Wow.
Nancy May:
All year long.
Sylvia Lovely:
My kid, my kid.
Nancy May:
Well, speaking of your kid, maybe we should take a break right now
Nancy May:
and we'll talk about other leftovers and what we should do in the new years.
Sylvia Lovely:
Sounds great.
Nancy May:
welcome back where we left off with leftovers.
Nancy May:
How appropriate is that?
Nancy May:
Right?
Sylvia Lovely:
I love it.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, you can.
Sylvia Lovely:
They go a long way too, for those of us who preserve and can and all that stuff.
Sylvia Lovely:
I'm amazed
Nancy May:
you mentioned the turkey soup and the turkey
Nancy May:
carcass that your son was making.
Nancy May:
And my, I call my husband, the king of crock pot wonders.
Nancy May:
And it was the instapot.
Nancy May:
He's the instapot king.
Nancy May:
And he takes all the carcasses and he, call it, the never ending pot of soup.
Nancy May:
And before we met, he'd been married and divorced and that was the insta
Nancy May:
pot of the day or the pot that he had was always the endless bottomless pot
Nancy May:
of soup, would feed him and his dog.
Nancy May:
So
Nancy May:
he's taken that tradition forward and taught me how to make soup.
Nancy May:
He makes the best soup, but.
Nancy May:
There are also other leftover things that we have over the Christmas
Nancy May:
holidays, right, because it's not just turkey, it's ham and it's
Nancy May:
all sorts of things that we do.
Sylvia Lovely:
Stuffing.
Nancy May:
Stuffing.
Nancy May:
Stuffing.
Sylvia Lovely:
What do you do with it?
Nancy May:
Oh, I make stuffing sandwiches.
Nancy May:
have you ever had, a bread sandwich?
Nancy May:
So
Nancy May:
my bread sandwich is, bread, stuffing, bread.
Sylvia Lovely:
But the stuffing is so good that you gotta find a use for it.
Nancy May:
Right?
Sylvia Lovely:
And you make it in quantity,
Nancy May:
You need a resolution of a diet after that one, because like, how
Nancy May:
much bread can slather on my thighs?
Nancy May:
Thank you.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah.
Nancy May:
Delicious.
Sylvia Lovely:
I'm still trying to find oyster dressing, by the way.
Sylvia Lovely:
Everybody has a year to get me an oyster stuffing recipe.
Nancy May:
Well, I'm gonna find one for you.
Nancy May:
but I don't consider oysters to be a thing in Kentucky.
Nancy May:
That's kind of weird.
Sylvia Lovely:
isn't it, and yet it was Country Cook that
Sylvia Lovely:
made the best oyster dressing.
Sylvia Lovely:
Ah,
Sylvia Lovely:
it just adds that richness to it,
Nancy May:
that must have been the
Sylvia Lovely:
that Class, I don't know that there are any, yeah, there are.
Sylvia Lovely:
Most of them are in the horsey world, though.
Nancy May:
So here's another one.
Nancy May:
Yeah, how about, what do you do with leftover gingerbread?
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh, tell me.
Nancy May:
there are a couple of things we can do, but I found that there's
Nancy May:
this Scandinavian tradition that you actually burn the gingerbread house.
Nancy May:
To me, that sounds like a rather pyrotechnic feat in the
Nancy May:
kitchen that I probably don't want to do in the kitchen, but,
Sylvia Lovely:
sort of counterintuitive too, you're burning houses.
Nancy May:
like, right?
Nancy May:
But that's what they do.
Nancy May:
They burn, these gingerbread houses.
Nancy May:
Have you ever made a gingerbread house?
Sylvia Lovely:
Never.
Nancy May:
Okay, so I've always wanted to do 1, but, um, a couple of years
Nancy May:
ago, you know, how are they have these kits in the grocery stores?
Nancy May:
So I got like, 4 kits and I made for
Nancy May:
gingerbread at
Sylvia Lovely:
really?
Sylvia Lovely:
Were they hard?
Sylvia Lovely:
I look
Nancy May:
Oh, they're not hard to do.
Nancy May:
It's kind of fun, but then what do you do with it afterwards?
Nancy May:
And so I gave it away to the neighbors after New Year's and the kid looked at
Nancy May:
me like, yeah, what do I do with this?
Nancy May:
I should have said, here's a match.
Sylvia Lovely:
Were they different styles of houses?
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh,
Nancy May:
there was a cottage.
Nancy May:
They had cute little critters that came with it.
Nancy May:
And you put.
Nancy May:
You know, um, was it
Nancy May:
the, um, the powdered sugar on it?
Nancy May:
So, but it was a decoration for a table when we had a party
Nancy May:
and it was kind of fun, but I couldn't get anybody to taste it.
Nancy May:
So,
Sylvia Lovely:
Did you burn them?
Nancy May:
Oh, I didn't burn it.
Nancy May:
I gave him to neighbor's kid.
Nancy May:
I should have burned.
Nancy May:
I said, I should have given him the matches.
Nancy May:
Right.
Nancy May:
But here's some other things you can do with gingerbread houses,
Nancy May:
which I thought were pretty cool.
Nancy May:
Instead of burning them or.
Nancy May:
Chucking them in the garbage, you know, you don't have to
Nancy May:
get really hard and crusty.
Sylvia Lovely:
Uh huh.
Nancy May:
Well, take that, take the pieces, put them in a plastic bag,
Nancy May:
crunch them up and think about the, the crust that you make for, a cream
Nancy May:
cheesecake or something like that,
Nancy May:
you know, the gram.
Nancy May:
So you substitute the gingerbread
Nancy May:
for the graham crackers,
Sylvia Lovely:
That's perfect.
Nancy May:
Or a lemon chiffon pie or I love lemon chiffon pies.
Nancy May:
Oh, my God.
Nancy May:
They're so good.
Nancy May:
They're so
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh, yes.
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh, yes.
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh, yes.
Nancy May:
But they're really good, or even sprinkling it on top of ice cream,
Sylvia Lovely:
Well, yeah.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah,
Nancy May:
or do it as a mix in for ice cream.
Nancy May:
So those are some traditions to get rid of the, sweet old foods
Nancy May:
that you become really hard.
Sylvia Lovely:
I am so into conserving where you can, It just seems right.
Sylvia Lovely:
If you go through the trouble of making a gingerbread house, then
Sylvia Lovely:
you should use it in various ways.
Sylvia Lovely:
Or a turkey carcass,
Nancy May:
right, right, or maybe you watch the, Godzilla Smashing Houses
Nancy May:
and you can play your inner Godzilla
Sylvia Lovely:
I guess.
Sylvia Lovely:
Well, what do you do with the Christmas tree?
Sylvia Lovely:
I want your answer on that one.
Nancy May:
Oh, the Christmas tree.
Nancy May:
Well, we're going to do an episode on that 1, but, the Christmas tree.
Nancy May:
We used to burn the Christmas tree.
Nancy May:
actually, the funny stories, our house, back north, we
Nancy May:
lived on the edge of a hill.
Nancy May:
So there's, there was a wall and then, you There was a hill on the other side
Nancy May:
and we would just toss our Christmas trees over the hill and Bob one day said,
Nancy May:
what are you going to do when I die?
Nancy May:
And I said, I'm just going to throw you over the hill with the Christmas trees.
Sylvia Lovely:
wherever you are.
Nancy May:
I don't think that should be a tradition.
Nancy May:
But anyway,
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, no, no, we need Bob to keep you under control.
Nancy May:
Watch out!
Nancy May:
Crazy lady in the kitchen!
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah.
Nancy May:
But we do, we, we got New Year's, we got healthy foods and all the
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh, no.
Sylvia Lovely:
And I get really into that, by the way.
Sylvia Lovely:
I really do.
Sylvia Lovely:
I get, you know, I get into this spirit of, all right, I've let it
Sylvia Lovely:
slide now from about October on.
Sylvia Lovely:
But here's the big thing.
Sylvia Lovely:
You want to hear the big thing for 2025?
Sylvia Lovely:
Fermented foods.
Sylvia Lovely:
They're very good for you, and it's a variety of things, and I
Sylvia Lovely:
was trying my best to find why.
Sylvia Lovely:
Why are they so good for you?
Sylvia Lovely:
And all the stuff you read, it's like they release, enzymes, and my, a macro,
Sylvia Lovely:
You know, micro little, those little old guys, yeah, that live in your gut and
Sylvia Lovely:
stuff, supposed to be really good for you.
Sylvia Lovely:
And I still, I'm still wondering, okay, so they do all those
Sylvia Lovely:
things, but how does that happen?
Sylvia Lovely:
What is fermentation?
Sylvia Lovely:
And it's like all the other stuff, like aged anything releases enzymes, you
Sylvia Lovely:
pull out all the moisture out of all the water and you, and salt is one of the
Nancy May:
That kind of sounds like my last birthday.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, but for some reason they're really good for you, and they
Sylvia Lovely:
restore what is missing in your gut.
Sylvia Lovely:
And there's more and more said about that.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, more and more done about that.
Nancy May:
sourdough is fermented and that's a real big thing.
Nancy May:
And I've got a friend who gave me a bunch of sourdough bread the other day.
Nancy May:
She calls her bread Fred.
Nancy May:
I did a post on Instagram on that.
Nancy May:
So Fred the bread.
Sylvia Lovely:
I love sourdough by the way.
Sylvia Lovely:
It's so good.
Nancy May:
beyond being good for you.
Nancy May:
it's supposed to, be lower in gluten for those who are gluten
Sylvia Lovely:
that's right.
Sylvia Lovely:
And miso soup was another one of those.
Sylvia Lovely:
But, I was telling you I went down a rabbit hole looking at these things,
Sylvia Lovely:
like, how old can things be that you can still eat them, you know?
Sylvia Lovely:
Because I'm fascinated, I've always been fascinated by dry aged beef, You're
Sylvia Lovely:
not supposed to leave stuff out, right?
Sylvia Lovely:
And it goes bad.
Sylvia Lovely:
Well, this requires, an agent that pulls out all the moisture so it's dry aged.
Sylvia Lovely:
So, it's kept in a very refrigerated, situation where it's not like you just
Sylvia Lovely:
lay it out on the counter and call it dry aged beef, you'll die, right?
Sylvia Lovely:
Because it's bad.
Sylvia Lovely:
so you've got that, and then, eastern Kentucky smokehouses.
Sylvia Lovely:
I was always fascinated with those because my grandfather had a smokehouse, and in
Sylvia Lovely:
those smokehouses, it was usually a hog.
Sylvia Lovely:
That they bought in the summer, raised it, and slaughtered it in November, and that
Sylvia Lovely:
was what fed the family throughout their, wintertime in Kentucky, and that's cold.
Sylvia Lovely:
Miss Floridian, that's cold out
Nancy May:
Well, now I'm used to New England, Darlene.
Sylvia Lovely:
in the hills of eastern Kentucky, but they
Sylvia Lovely:
would, cure it with salt.
Sylvia Lovely:
you'd have that carcass and you'd rub it with salt several times.
Sylvia Lovely:
It was a serious undertaking, days long undertaking.
Sylvia Lovely:
And, you rub it down and then you kept it in the smokehouse and then put the meat
Sylvia Lovely:
up, hung it up, and that was country ham.
Sylvia Lovely:
And, country ham's pretty famous.
Sylvia Lovely:
It's very salty.
Sylvia Lovely:
And we were talking about what do you get, how do you get salt out of food.
Sylvia Lovely:
And,
Nancy May:
know, the Norwegian fish that they had, the
Nancy May:
salt fish, that's how they preserved it.
Nancy May:
But, and that's like generations of traditions on that front, but
Nancy May:
they soak it in milk and, soaking a whole ham in milk, that's, it
Nancy May:
seems like a waste of milk, right?
Sylvia Lovely:
They say to chop it up and put it in water.
Sylvia Lovely:
And there's a whole, process you go through where you keep doing
Sylvia Lovely:
that until it gets to the point.
Sylvia Lovely:
And sometimes people will just eat it.
Sylvia Lovely:
You've had an experience where it wasn't that fun, right?
Nancy May:
Yeah, no, when we were on college tour, I was looking for
Nancy May:
colleges and my folks, well, it's just like all families, they take their
Nancy May:
kids around to go look at different campuses and see if this is the one.
Nancy May:
We were coming back through Virginia, Colonial Williamsburg area, and my mom
Nancy May:
saw a ham I guess it is like the big, the
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, the big thing.
Sylvia Lovely:
It looks like a big old shoulder or
Sylvia Lovely:
something, you
Nancy May:
exactly.
Nancy May:
I,
Sylvia Lovely:
know.
Sylvia Lovely:
it's either their
Nancy May:
butt whatever it is, but it was a big piece of meat and
Nancy May:
it's covered in the linen cloth.
Nancy May:
It's all in a little sack and it said Virginia ham on it, whatever it was.
Nancy May:
And mom was so excited.
Nancy May:
She was going to bring it back home.
Nancy May:
We brought it back home to Massachusetts.
Nancy May:
And, she's trying to figure out how to cook this thing.
Nancy May:
And it was the nastiest piece of meat.
Nancy May:
We all agreed.
Nancy May:
it was hard.
Nancy May:
It was dry and we didn't know what to do.
Nancy May:
And then we were just, Like,
Sylvia Lovely:
Toss it down the hillside, right?
Nancy May:
yeah, with the Christmas trees.
Nancy May:
Absolutely, we should have done that.
Nancy May:
But it was pretty nasty.
Nancy May:
So, we were disappointed, unfortunately.
Sylvia Lovely:
City Ham.
Sylvia Lovely:
City Ham is the modern version.
Sylvia Lovely:
It's where they don't do, it's done in somewhat similar ways, but not only with
Sylvia Lovely:
salt, and it takes a lot shorter time.
Sylvia Lovely:
So it's a sweeter ham, like most of us Kentuckians will
Sylvia Lovely:
make clear we want City Ham.
Nancy May:
Now, do they actually label it Cityham when you buy it?
Sylvia Lovely:
Well, you can go in a restaurant, and I don't know that I've
Sylvia Lovely:
ever seen it labeled, but if you go to a restaurant, you can ask, is it City Ham?
Sylvia Lovely:
And they'll say yes, and because it's mostly that's what it is in a restaurant
Nancy May:
I wonder do they preserve it
Nancy May:
differently?
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, in a much compressed time.
Sylvia Lovely:
It takes a lot of time to preserve it through, to make it
Sylvia Lovely:
country ham, and it's very salty.
Sylvia Lovely:
So you do have to go through this process if you're a city fied
Sylvia Lovely:
person, and don't want to eat a lot of salt, or you have hypertension.
Sylvia Lovely:
I don't know.
Sylvia Lovely:
Back in the country, I don't think they worried about those things.
Sylvia Lovely:
They
Sylvia Lovely:
just
Nancy May:
I'm thinking, I'm thinking country and Kentucky and only
Nancy May:
driven through Kentucky once many years ago, never really stopping.
Nancy May:
Unfortunately, I should, I'll have to come and visit.
Nancy May:
So we'll,
Nancy May:
we'll
Sylvia Lovely:
of
Sylvia Lovely:
course you
Nancy May:
in for a while, but all I can think of is if you're going
Nancy May:
to eat that country ham, you better have a jigger of moonshine next
Sylvia Lovely:
Well, we can get that for you, too, that we can get you there.
Sylvia Lovely:
And just in the future as a 2025 resolution order Cityham,
Nancy May:
I will order city ham.
Nancy May:
I'll see if they even have it down here.
Nancy May:
I'll
Sylvia Lovely:
it made me think of, going through the hills of Kentucky, you might
Sylvia Lovely:
even find some roadkill along the way.
Sylvia Lovely:
So, you know, we're country folk here.
Sylvia Lovely:
No, there's a funny story though, in Williamsburg, Kentucky, there was
Sylvia Lovely:
a huge news story about a little.
Sylvia Lovely:
Vietnamese restaurant that had established itself there, and
Sylvia Lovely:
someone saw them take a deer off the road and take it in the back door.
Sylvia Lovely:
It was huge.
Sylvia Lovely:
It was a huge news story.
Nancy May:
yeah, we, saw something like that with turtles up
Nancy May:
north.
Nancy May:
Yeah, the big, well, I guess they're big, they're not box to those are small, but
Nancy May:
there was this big turtle and the joke was like, okay, the turtle disappeared because
Nancy May:
the Chinese restaurant and picked it up
Sylvia Lovely:
Oh, well, you know, you have to be enterprising, right?
Sylvia Lovely:
But,
Sylvia Lovely:
you want to know what the oldest food that they have found?
Sylvia Lovely:
Now, there's some canned goods that were 109 years old that were still edible.
Nancy May:
well, I, I'm not sure I want to open that
Sylvia Lovely:
Well, they even said that it smelled bad, and it
Sylvia Lovely:
looked terrible, and they tasted it.
Sylvia Lovely:
And I'm like, why
Sylvia Lovely:
would you do that?
Sylvia Lovely:
Why would you even, ick?
Sylvia Lovely:
But anyway, honey, 3, 000 year old honey.
Nancy May:
well, the Egyptians used it to preserve bodies,
Nancy May:
right?
Nancy May:
so I guess,
Sylvia Lovely:
you live longer.
Sylvia Lovely:
Eat that honey.
Nancy May:
gosh, can you imagine?
Nancy May:
I wonder if the bees were different back then than they are now?
Sylvia Lovely:
Probably, I think everything is, but there are many
Sylvia Lovely:
things that are better today, Right?
Sylvia Lovely:
We're going to be optimists.
Nancy May:
that age that are good, well, you're in bourbon country, and then
Nancy May:
there's certainly red, good red wine, although you're in bourbon country,
Sylvia Lovely:
Bourbon country.
Sylvia Lovely:
That's all about age.
Sylvia Lovely:
And we're going to do that in a separate show.
Sylvia Lovely:
We're going to go about our way with bourbon.
Sylvia Lovely:
it'll be fun.
Nancy May:
I'm excited to learn about bourbon.
Nancy May:
It's not something that I've gotten involved in, but uh, you know what?
Nancy May:
Maybe there's a resolution to try a little bourbon in the new year.
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah, they say it's great.
Sylvia Lovely:
Now I'm a wino.
Nancy May:
I'm a wino too.
Nancy May:
Although we've really gotten interested in the non alcoholic beers lately, my
Nancy May:
husband and I, Bob and I, and there's some really different between the tastes.
Nancy May:
I'm surprised at How broad the taste and the differences
Nancy May:
between from, O'Doul's to Miller.
Nancy May:
Sorry, sorry, Miller, but God, I might as well drink a glass of water.
Sylvia Lovely:
Really?
Nancy May:
It's really kind of
Sylvia Lovely:
That's like Miller Lite or something?
Sylvia Lovely:
Yeah.
Nancy May:
And then, uh, and then we found some others that were done by
Nancy May:
Trappist monks that were good, although I think they probably had alcohol
Nancy May:
in it, but that was pretty good too.
Nancy May:
Anyway, so New Year's resolution, maybe, if I'm not drinking wine or
Nancy May:
bourbon, It's the non alcoholic beer,
Nancy May:
which is growing.
Nancy May:
So there's a lot that's going to happen in 2025, and we hope that
Nancy May:
you're going to stick around for a long, a lot more time to go.
Nancy May:
But before we go, I have one more kind of thing, and it doesn't really necessarily
Nancy May:
deal with food, but the new year is kind of interesting, and always around
Nancy May:
March, I start to panic and thinking that the new year is over, I haven't gotten
Nancy May:
anything done, what am I going to do?
Nancy May:
It's March already!
Nancy May:
It's
Nancy May:
March already!
Nancy May:
So yeah,
Nancy May:
I'll try not to panic as a New Year's resolution.
Sylvia Lovely:
I love that.
Sylvia Lovely:
I'm going to adopt that one, too.
Sylvia Lovely:
Just take it slow and
Sylvia Lovely:
easy.
Sylvia Lovely:
Like
Sylvia Lovely:
your, uh, like your slow cooker, you know?
Sylvia Lovely:
It's a time to calm down, too.
Nancy May:
absolutely.
Nancy May:
And we actually want to make sure that people are taking the time to pull
Nancy May:
a chair up to your table and have a conversation and really enjoy that meal.
Nancy May:
Put down your cell phones.
Nancy May:
Well, maybe not if you're listening to the show, but
Nancy May:
listen
Sylvia Lovely:
Not always bad.
Nancy May:
Yeah.
Nancy May:
Yeah, but we do hope that you'll stick around and please share the
Nancy May:
show in this episode and your ideas and the things that you're doing with
Nancy May:
friends and family around the table, the traditions, the foods that you
Nancy May:
love and the stories, because what's a meal without a story, right?
Nancy May:
Because every recipe has a story and every story is a feast.
Sylvia Lovely:
There you go.
Nancy May:
Take care.
Nancy May:
Bye bye.