If a quiet and unacknowledged new menu change is any indication, it looks as if Cracker Barrel hasn’t learned a thing from the backlash it received when it went woke last summer.
The once-beloved restaurant chain found itself in the center of the conflict between patriots and leftists back in the summer of 2025, when it threw “Uncle Herschel” and his barrel off its logo, exchanging what had been a much-loved bit of Americana for a sterile, cosmopolitan rootlessness. The bigger change, however, wasn’t as visible: Cracker Barrel embraced DEI policies, pandering to every leftist delusion and fantasy with an enthusiasm that was at odds with the chain’s folksy, traditional image. After a massive outcry, Cracker Barrel backed down and brought Uncle Herschel back from the retirement home, but it is now clear: the people who hate the brand and its customers are still in charge.
Fox News reported Thursday that Cracker Barrel “once routinely served a traditional New Year's Day fare at its restaurants, touting complimentary black-eyed peas for customers in social media promotions — but that seemingly stopped a few years ago.” Not only has the company stopped touting black-eyed peas for New Year’s Day; it has even “quietly stopped serving” them.
People have noticed because they like black-eyed peas, but also because “for generations across the South, black-eyed peas have traditionally been served on New Year's Day.” Renowned chef Jason Smith observes that “black-eyed peas in the South [are] a super-huge traditional food for New Year's Day."
This is because many Southerners think that eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day brings good luck throughout the year. John Egerton, author of Southern Food: At Home, On the Road, In History, says that in the minds of many Southerners, black-eyed peas have a "mystical and mythical power to bring good luck."
This idea can be traced back to the Civil War. Fox explains that “when Union troops raided Southern food supplies, they often overlooked black-eyed peas, supposedly considering them animal feed. That made them a staple food for Southerners during a time of scarcity and a symbol of good fortune.”
The chain didn’t answer when asked specifically why this popular menu item was gone, but Sarah Moore, Cracker Barrel's chief marketing officer, did say, according to Fox, “that menu decisions reflect a balance between regional tradition and national footprint.”
Moore explained: "I think there are two strategies here. I think, first and foremost, what we will focus on as we continue to evolve the menu is a localized regional strategy as well. We operate in 44 states. I think we have a great opportunity to bring more localized flavors and regionality into our menu." Yeah, Cracker Barrel did have that opportunity, but by deep-sixing black-eyed peas, it took a step away from “localized flavors and regionality.”
And it’s easy to see why. Who first thought that eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day would bring good luck? Southerners. And not modern-day mocha latte-drinking leftists from Chapel Hill or Athens or Austin, either, but actual Confederates, during the Civil War. As if that weren’t bad enough, this tradition evolved from the Union troops’ theft of Southerners’ food supplies. That cuts directly against the contemporary assumption that during the Civil War, the Union was 100% good and the Confederacy was 100% evil.
Even worse, in the minds of the ignorant, arrogant, and supremely confident woke leftists who now run Cracker Barrel, this means that black-eyed peas for good luck on New Year’s Day are inextricably bound up with the Confederacy. This means, in their thoroughly indoctrinated minds, that black-eyed peas are pro-slavery and racist to the core, and cannot be redeemed. To offer complimentary black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is to endorse the slave ship, the lash, and the ramshackle cabins weathering in the shadow of the lavish plantation house.
And so the choice that Cracker Barrel faced wasn’t really a choice at all. There was no question about it: black-eyed peas had to go. The idea, of course, that to engage in a harmless cultural tradition on New Year’s Day is to embrace racism and slavery is absurd, but no one could ever accuse leftists of being linear, rational thinkers. Cracker Barrel should know better after everything that happened to it last summer, but as one old Southerner once said, “You know, some men you just can’t reach.”
