Garces served fried pork and warm hominy salad with peas, carrots and cilantro, which, according to several people I spoke with, was one of the better received dishes of the evening.

FORBES: Iron Chef Jose Garces Cooking in Barbados

As the sun rose, they sliced plantains to prepare tostones (twice-fried green plantains) and boiled gandules (pigeon peas) with rice.

BBC: Puerto Rico��s Pork Highway

Around our house, when not infected by the Birdseye plague, real food often meant chicken-fried steak with mashed potatoes and cream gravy, sugar peas, field peas, black-eyed peas, lima beans, green beans, all greens, ambrosia, okra, corn, tomato aspic, squash casseroles, pot roast, fried fish, chicken and dumplings, hot rolls, biscuits, cornbread, cakes, pies, fudge, divinity and Mama's homemade vegetable soup, which was world famous in our family.

NPR: Linda Ellerbee, Taking 'Big Bites'

Chef Charlie Sims cooked fried chicken, lasagna and the region's traditional New Year's dishes of black-eyed peas and cabbage.

NPR: Danza Quartet Welcomes 2009, Bayou Style