New Year's Eve Good Luck Foods?
One of my friends told me that she has black eyed peas and pork for New Year's - gives you good luck for the New Year. I never heard of this.
Are there other foods, too?
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29 Comments:
I don't know about new years eve, but here in Alabama it's considered good luck to eat black eyed peas and greens (collards or turnip) on new years day.
Pavlov at 8:59PM on 12/26/08
Bloody Mary's.
pjracz10 at 9:18PM on 12/26/08
For good luck in the new year we eat certain foods on the first day of the New Year.
The Southern part of my upbringing demands Hoppin' John's (black eyed peas) with pork.
The Korean part of my upbringing demands dduk guuk (rice cake stew).
Both are delicious in their own way and both are delicious with ripe kimchi.
wookie at 10:09PM on 12/26/08
Where I grew up in South Carolina, the "good luck" foods were smoked hog jowls, black eyed peas, and collard greens. Maybe a possum if my grandpa caught one. Needless to say, New Years was the most disappointing food holiday for a kid.
beth1 at 10:40PM on 12/26/08
It depends if it is cold. I always want to make pork and sauerkraut unless it is warm. Then I want to make something else.
JerzeeTomato at 12:41AM on 12/27/08
Chinese people eat the following foods for good luck. Big oranges and pears (the bigger the better). The words for oranges and pears sound like the words for good luck and good fortune. Chinese people also like to serve fish because the word fish sounds like the word abundance. Chinese people also eat tons of sweets -candied lotus root and seeds, candied mellon, and lots of candies and chocolates in addition to a sweet soup of lotus seeds and dates, because sweets represent a sweet life.
But the most famous item is sticky rice cakes both sweet and salty. Eating rice cake will prolong your life and give you vitality.
sailingsam at 2:06AM on 12/27/08
Once, and only once, my mother insisted that pickled herrings were lucky, and she was insisting that my cousins and I should eat them.
Actually, I think the deal was that she brought them, and she wanted to make sure that someone was eating them.
dbcurrie at 2:31AM on 12/27/08
Pavlov you forgot the hog jowl. My ex mil used to fix black eyed peas and hog jowl every new years. its almost like bacon actually and not too bad.
huneybumper at 8:27AM on 12/27/08
In addition to black-eyed peas and collard greens, I've also heard that cooked sliced carrots symbolize "copper pennies" and therefore prosperity in the New Year.
Esmeralda at 8:58AM on 12/27/08
I don't know about regional "good luck" meals but I have, for numerous years, made a huge pot of chicken gumbo shortly after Christmas (today for example) and it carries the family until the New Year; no cooking, just reheat what you'll eat. Something with pork will be the first thing cooked after the gumbo's gone. Somewhere it makes sense that chickens scratch backwards and pigs root forward... I've read that the collard greens mentioned look like, and represent paper currency and the carrot slices, coins. Coming prosperity in the New Year..,
yeah right!
czken at 9:26AM on 12/27/08
I grew up eating saurkraut and kielbasa every NYE. It wasn't until much, much later when I started traveling instead of heading home for the holidays did I realize that was not the norm for most people. Most ethnic heritage has been lost in our family, but the Polish food bug is tough to shake ... it's SO good.
joyyy at 10:10AM on 12/27/08
@huneybumper... good point... but I always put a smoked ham hock in my greens... and smoked ham in the black eyed peas... it wouldn't be the south if you couldn't have pork with your pork.... why not add hog jowls!
Pavlov at 11:13AM on 12/27/08
On New Years Day we have pork and sauerkraut. Since we celebrate the day with friends, we have collard greens and black eyed peas as well. Growing up in Maine, we did not have a specific food on New Years Day, so this tradition has been fun for me.
izatryt at 11:37AM on 12/27/08
Japanese New Year's food is called Osechi ryori and the delicious mixture of colorful dishes are packed in beautiful lacquered boxes called jubako.
Each dish and ingredient in osechi has meaning, such as good health, fertility, good harvest, happiness, long life, and so on.
See here for more info:
http://www.google.com/search?q=osechi+ryori&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGLD
sailingsam at 2:50PM on 12/27/08
jewish people eat the head of a fish on rosh hashana, the new year. this is to ensure that we are always at the head, not the tail.
cybercita at 3:03PM on 12/27/08
i'm a cross between joyyy & izatryt.
kielbasa, pork, sauerkraut, (occasionally hotdogs), & a bottle of yuengling-all thrown into a crockpot and left to slow cook for about 12 hours....heaven. rye bread & butter, mashed potatoes....i defy you to find a better tasting way to kick off your new year. i don't think i've ever missed this good luck meal actually....every 1st! going to get the ingredients tomorrow, in fact! i feel lucky just thinking about it :)
gastronomeg at 4:09PM on 12/27/08
We always have blackeyed peas, as well as a cabbage dish (boiled or a similar bland affair). I'm in the south, and people in this area love mustards, collards, and turnip greens, but the much less tasty cabbage is the local NY Day tradition. The stores have piles of them out now.
Remander at 4:48PM on 12/27/08
Years ago,while I was still in high school, I had a very good friend whose parents would invite a whole bunch of us over on New Year's Day to eat and watch the games. They had come from Cuba in the late 60's.
I will never forget the black beans and rice, and the fried plantains! Sooooo tasty!
lindy123 at 5:16PM on 12/27/08
Roast loin of pork and sauerkraut! My grandmom said it was bad luck to eat chicken on New Years's Day or you'd be "scratching for money all year"
Rhiannon at 8:54PM on 12/27/08
@lindy123 lucky you...homemade black beans, rice and fried plantains. (i'm sure there was pork too)> I miss Cuban food from our many years in Miami.
elaine nan at 10:06PM on 12/27/08
depends on where you are from...black-eyed peas are a standard, imhop not so tastey, looking for collards to dress them up.
Shelleyanne at 12:14AM on 12/28/08
12 grapes at the chime of midnight for good luck. It's a Spanish thing, but I have some Cuban friends that have the same tradition. I'm going to a concert on NYE so hopefully I'll be allowed to bring grapes.
gingercookiewithlime at 2:16PM on 12/28/08
We will have lentil soup as is the Italian tradition. The lentils are coin shaped and they encourage prosperity. Given we just moved to ATL we aren't taking any chances and will also have black eyed peas, collards and corn bread. Gotta cover as many bases as possible!
Happy, healthy 2009 to everyone here at SE. Looking forward to another year of culinary exploits from the rockin'est culinary community on the web.
therealchiffonade at 9:00PM on 12/28/08
In ky we have black eyed peas and cabbage with a dime wrapped in aluminum foil and who ever finds the dime will have the prosperity in the coming year.
rwcantrell at 9:49PM on 12/28/08
dbcurrie, pickled herring is atually a very common lucky new year's food, at least in the Chicago area, due to our large German and Polish populations.
Though it is purportedly a German and Polish tradition, it was confirmed as a "lucky food for New Year's" by the head chef at a sushi restaurant here, though in a diferent variety. We were out to eat there a couple days after Christmas one year and I saw an item in the display glass I'd never seen before. I asked Ebina (the chef) what it was, and he told us "Herring egg, for lucky new year!"
Incidentally, after years of relatively stagnant income, I finally gave in to the herring 5 years ago. My income has increased significantly every year I've had my piece of herring. Something to be said for the power of suggestion and the subconscious mind's link to food :D
dogstar23 at 8:58PM on 12/30/08
My Grandpa was German and he always had pickled pig's feet...can't bring myself to try them.....
shrtcake_1999 at 2:11PM on 12/31/08
does anyone have a few good recipes they can share for black-eyed peas? i bought some to make but have no idea what i want or should do with them.
TIA!
izwombat at 4:16PM on 12/31/08
Since I'm of Jewish ancestry, I got to wondering about foods for the Jewish New Year after I found out about the black-eyed-peas-and-greens thing. Websurfing turned up nothing specific to the new year, but I did find one page that said anything that reminiscent of God's gifts to Israel – in short, anything tasty and exotic – is appropriate to the new year.
So, with my black-eyed peas, I serve a beet/red cabbage/carrot coleslaw, with a slightly sweet dill vinaigrette. I know that is a Jewish recipe, and I love it.
gentlyferal at 4:34PM on 01/07/09
@izwombat: Black-eyed peas are good in any kind of bean recipe. Do a websearch on "hopping john," too.
@gingercookiewithlime: I used to know a Mexican lady who did the 12-grapes-at-midnight thing. I suppose that custom is known throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
gentlyferal at 5:22PM on 01/07/09