New Year’s Eve may focus on partying and popping the bubbly, but New Year’s Day is all about spending time with family to feast on foods that’ll bring good luck. Many countries have traditions where they eat certain New Year’s Day foods to start the year off right. If you’ve ever wondered why people devour particular foods on January 1, prepare to get some answers. Here are 10 traditional New Year’s Day foods and why we eat them:
1. Pork
Pork is a classic New Year’s Day food as it represents prosperity and progress. Pigs are known to be plump, so eating pork is supposed to make someone chunky, not with weight gain, but cash. Pork can also bring progress since pigs “root forward” when they eat.
2. Greens
If money grew on trees, we’d all be rich. Actually, money may grow on trees in the form of vegetables. Greens like spinach, cabbage and broccoli can bring wealth into your New Year because these veggies are green like money.
3. Lentils
Italians eat lentils on New Year’s because they represent luck and prosperity due to their similar appearance to coins. If you want to find a treasure chest of gold in 2018, try eating some lentils to help you find the “X” on your treasure map.
4. Grapes
Eating grapes is part of a Spanish tradition where they eat 12 grapes in the first 12 seconds after the clock strikes midnight to symbolize 12 lucky months ahead. Eating that many grapes in so little time sounds dangerous, but I like the idea of having a whole lucky year ahead.
5. Long Noodles
In countries like China and Japan, long noodles signify longevity. It seems like everyone’s searching for a secret to live longer, so maybe all we need to do it eat some long noodles with our New Year’s Day foods. Apparently, the longer the noodle, the longer the life you’ll have.
6. Cornbread
Down south, people eat cornbread because its color symbolizes gold. I’m a fan of all bread, so if eating cornbread means I could run into some gold later in the year, count me in.
7. Whole Fish
Eating fish on New Year’s has multiple benefits. First, fish represents prosperity because they always travel in schools, and their scales resemble silver coins. Fish can also bring progress to your life because they always swim forward. If you really want to bring good fortune into your year, eat some fish.
8. Pomegranate
In Turkey, people eat pomegranates for prosperity since the fruit has so many seeds. The more seeds you have in your pomegranate, the richer you’ll become. Also, the fruit’s red color resembles the human heart, which denotes life and fertility.
9. Circle-Shaped Foods
Circular foods like donuts and bagels represent the year coming full circle. This makes sense because you have to end one year before starting another. If you want a final ending to this year, try eating a donut before your New Year’s celebrations.
10. New Year’s Pretzel
Purchasing a New Year’s pretzel is a must where I live in Pittsburgh, PA. I can’t remember a New Year’s without a pretzel. New Year’s pretzels are supposed to be eaten at midnight or before breakfast on New Year’s Day to bring good luck. If you’ve never had a delicious danish like this for New Year’s, you should try this tradition.
If you want to bring good fortune into the New Year as soon as the clock strikes midnight, eat some of these traditional New Year’s Day foods. A pork, cornbread, and lentil combination might just cause you to have the best year yet.