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The New Year![]()
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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 |
Greens Green: the color of money. Though collards |
Cornbread The old Southern expression goes "peas for pennies, greens for dollars, and cornbread |
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 |
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Ancient Rome It was customary in Ancient Rome to exchange gifts of figs |
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 |
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 |
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China The Chinese New Year follows the lunar calendar. There are many lucky foods: noodles |
Denmark The traditional Danish New Year's menu includes boiled cod |
France The French eat a stack of very thin pancakes called crêpes |
Germany Like the Danes, Germans also enjoy fish for New Year's. Folklore says that herring |
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. |
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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 |
Italy Customs vary by region, but contechino con lenticchie (pork sausage |
Japan Long soba |
Jewish New Year The Jewish New Year is called Rosh Hashanah and it takes place in early fall. Apples and honey |
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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 |
Tibet In Tibet, scraps of wood or bits of charcoal |
You can read about all the New Year's traditions in the world, but the most important thing is, if you don't have them already, to establish your own.
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