Legumes

Legumes are eaten for a financially successful year. They not only resemble coins, but they swell up when cooked, just as you would want your fortune to swell. A traditional Southern dish is called Hoppin' John, a combination of black-eyed peas  and rice  (also lucky as it symbolizes abundance), but lentils  are also a tasty alternative.

Greens

Green: the color of money.  Though collards  are the green of choice in the southern states, kale ,chard  and turnip greens  are a tasty way to ensure an economically prosperous New year.  You could even do like the Dutch- and German-Americans do by eating cabbage  or sauerkraut .  Remember, the more you eat, the greater your fortune will be! 

Cornbread

The old Southern expression goes "peas for pennies, greens for dollars, and cornbread  for gold".  The symbolic origins of this treat have little ambiguity: eat the golden-colored bread and your wealth will naturally increase.  As an added treat, there's no better way to sop up the juices left behind from your black-eyed peas and collard greens.

Pork

Pigs are considered good luck because they root forward, symbolizing progress (with this logic, lobster is to be avoided since it moves backwards).  In the Italian tradition, the fatty meat is also linked to a fat wallet.  It is therefore natural that pork --and especially ham  in the United States--would be a delicious staple of the New Year's table. 

Ancient Rome

It was customary in Ancient Rome to exchange gifts of figs ,dates  and nuts .

Armenia

A big, flat bread called Darin is made.  A coin is often hidden inside, and the person getting that piece will be especially lucky that year.

Austria

Suckling pig  is eaten and the table is sometimes decorated with miniature pigs made of marzipan  or chocolate.

Bosnia & Croatia

In these countries, minced beef is rolled into large cabbage leaves.  This sarma is said to bring health and wealth.

Cambodia

New Year is in April (according to the Indian calendar), and sticky rice cakes are filled with ground sweet beans  in honor of the Hindu god Shiva's wife, Uma.

China

The Chinese New Year follows the lunar calendar.  There are many lucky foods: noodles  symbolize a long life, and dumplings  resemble gold nuggets.

Denmark

The traditional Danish New Year's menu includes boiled cod .  Fish are seen as lucky because their scales look like silver.

France

The French eat a stack of very thin pancakes called crêpes  in hopes of luck and good health in the coming year.

Germany

Like the Danes, Germans also enjoy fish for New Year's.  Folklore says that herring  should be eaten at midnight to ensure luck.

Greece

The Greeks eat vassilopita, which is a sweet bread into which a coin has been baked.  Whoever gets the coin will have luck in the new year.

Holland

Olie Bollen, or oil balls, are puffed donuts filled with apples, raisins and currants.  Round foods are quite lucky because they resemble coins.

Hungary

A very lucky dish is a suckling pig with a four-leaf clover  in its mouth.  Chicken  and fish  are avoided: chicken because you don't want to scratch around for money like a chicken scratches for food, and fish because your money might swim away.

Italy

Customs vary by region, but contechino con lenticchie (pork sausage  over lentils) is quite common.  A snake-shaped good luck sweet is sometimes served: this represents leaving the past behind, much as a snake sheds its skin.

Japan

Long soba  noodles are served; as in China, they symbolize a long life. Red snapper  is also popular because the color red is very lucky in Japan.

Jewish New Year

The Jewish New Year is called Rosh Hashanah and it takes place in early fall. Apples and honey  are eaten for a sweet year to come.

Latin America & Spain

In many Hispanic countries, twelve grapes are eaten at the stroke of midnight.  If the grape for the respective month is sweet, it will be a good month, and likewise if the grape is sour.

The Philippines

The type of food eaten doesn't matter so much as the quanitity.  Filipinos believe that having a large amount of food on the table at midnight will usher in an abundant New Year.

Switzerland

The Swiss tradition doesn't involve the eating of lucky foods per se, but whipped cream  is dropped on the floor as a demonstration of the surplus wealth to come.

Tibet

In Tibet, scraps of wood or bits of charcoal  are cooked into food.  These are meant to predict the future ahead.  The person who finds the charcoal is said to have a black heart, so beware!

New Year's Eve

New Year's Resolutions

Sparkling Wine

Champagne Glasses

Winter Decorating