Happy New Year to All!
Symbolism of New Year’s Day foods
In most cultures, foods prepared on New Year’s Day bring good luck. Which foods? Depends upon the culture. Recurring themes are green (life), gold & coins (money/wealth) and pork/ham (because pigs root forward as they eat, embracing challenges).
“As New Year’s Day approaches, people around the world will plan for the coming year, eager to get off to the best possible start! Many people will “eat for luck”-they plan to eat special foods that, by tradition, are supposed to bring them good luck. Throughout history, people have eaten certain foods on New Year’s Day, hoping to gain riches, love, or other kinds of good fortune 
during the rest of the year. For people of several nationalities, ham or pork is the luckiest thing to eat on New Year’s Day. How did the pig become associated with the idea of good luck? In Europe hundreds of years ago, wild boars were caught in the forests and killed on the first day of the year. Also, a pig uses its snout to dig in the ground in a forward direction. Maybe people liked the idea of moving forward as the new year began, especially since pigs are also associated with plumpness and getting plenty to eat.
However the custom arose, Austrians, Swedes, and Germans frequently choose pork or ham for their New Year’s meal. They brought this tradition with them when they settled in different regions of the United States. New Englanders often combine their pork with sauerkraut to guarantee luck and prosperity for the coming year.
Germans and Swedes may pick cabbage as a lucky side dish, too. In other places, turkey is the meat of choice. Bolivians and some people in New Orleans follow this custom. But other people claim that eating fowl (such as turkey, goose, or chicken) on New Year’s Day will result in bad luck. The reason? Fowl scratch backward as they search for their food, and who wants to have to “scratch for a living”?
Frequently, fish is the lucky food. People in the northwestern part of the United States may eat salmon to get lucky. Some Germans and Poles choose herring, which may be served in a cream sauce or pickled. Germans eat carp. Sometimes sweets or pastries are eaten for luck. In the colony of New Amsterdam, now New York, the Dutch settlers still enjoy these treats…In some places, a special cake is made with a coin baked inside. Such cakes are traditional in Greece, which celebrates Saint Basil’s Day and New Year’s at the same time.
The Saint Basil’s Day cake (vasilopeta) is made of yeast dough and flavored with lemon. The person who gets the slice with the silver or gold coin is considered very lucky! Many of the luck-bringing foods are round or ring-shaped, because this signifies that the old year has been completed.
In Brazil, lentils are a symbol of prosperity, so lentil soup or lentils with rice is prepared for the first meal of the New Year. Thousands of miles away, the Japanese observe their New Year’s tradition of eating a noodle called toshikoshi soba. (This means “sending out the old year.”) This buckwheat noodle is quite long, and those who can swallow at least one of them without chewing or breaking it are supposed to enjoy good luck and a long life. Portugal and Spain have an interesting custom.
Black-eyed peas are an example of this, and they are part of one of New Year’s most colorful dishes, Hoppin’ John, which is eaten in many southern states. Hoppin’ John is made with black-eyed peas or dried red peas, combined with hog jowls, bacon, or salt pork. Rice, butter, salt, or other vegetables may be added. The children in the family might even hop around the table before the family sits down to eat this lucky dish which has become a staple in Texas.
Here’s a great recipe to start the New Year off! Click on the hyperlink for Black-Eyed Pea with Jalapeños Pie recipe.
As the clock strikes midnight and the new year begins, people may follow the custom of eating twelve grapes or raisins to bring them luck for all twelve months of the coming year! ” —“Eat for Luck!,” Victoria Sherrow & David Helton, Children’s Digest, Jan/Feb94 (p. 20
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Real Texas Tradition
Here in Real Texas, the tradition is to eat black-eyed peas….and it is the same for much of the south. Black-eyed peas and cornbread…it’s a Real Texas Tradition.
Happy New Year 2014
I’m David out here in Real Texas
…just down the road from Bandera and around the corner from Boerne.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Black-eyed peas are considered good luck in the Confederate States of America. During the War of Northern Aggression when Union soldiers burned and looted southern homes and crops, they thought Black-eyed peas were a weed and they were often spared from burning. Being a good source of nutrition they helped many in the South to survive their war-torn land.
Started cooking my black-eye peas and ham about noon, the 31st. Let ‘um cook on low till ready for lunch today, the first of 2014. Good luck on the horizon.
Charles and I are enjoying “Black-eye pea Soup” with buttered cornbread. As Kawhi Leonard would say,”It’s Gooood”! Happy New Year to you and Ramona.