On the Table — Prosperous Plates: Eating for Luck on New Year’s Eve
The beginning of a new year represents an opportunity to leave the past behind and start anew. Cultures around the world ring in the New Year with foods laden with the hope of improving luck and fortune in the coming year. While traditions vary from country to country, these deeply symbolic customs bear some striking similarities.
A widespread practice is to eat twelve grapes at midnight. Those who are able to eat all the grapes by the time the clock strikes twelve—it’s harder than it sounds!—will have good luck in el año nuevo. The exact origins of the Spanish tradition are debated, but one common story is attributed to grape growers who popularized the ritual as a creative way to sell their bumper harvest.[1. Koehler, Jeff. “Green Grapes and Red Underwear: A Spanish New Year’s Eve,” The Salt, published December 12, 2012, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/12/26/168092673/green-grapes-and-red-underwear-a-spanish-new-years-eve. Accessed December 26, 2015.] The practice took hold, spreading to many former Spanish colonies, including Cuba, Mexico and Bolivia.
While traditions vary from country to country, these deeply symbolic customs bear some striking similarities.
Other round foods have auspicious associations. In Italy, families enjoy dishes with lentils, which represent wealth and prosperity because they resemble coins.[2. Riley, Gillian. The Oxford Companion to Italian Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2007), 195.] Variations often reflect regional differences in agriculture. In the rice-rich Piedmont region, the ritual New Year’s Eve dinner is risotto in bianco,[3. Riley, Oxford Companion, 195.] a savory rice porridge topped with creamy fonduta, a regional specialty made of melted fontina cheese.[4. Oxford Companion, 216.]
Lentils are propitious across the Atlantic as well. In Mexico, some revelers eat a spoonful of cooked lentils at midnight. A handful of the dried legumes can also be given to guests or kept in a purse for prosperity, or scattered outside of the home as a symbol of abundance. Yet another ritual is to burn candles overnight on a white plate surrounded by lentils, beans, rice, corn and flour. The seeds and melted wax are then buried to promote good fortune and the abundance of staple foods in the coming year.
Pork represents prosperity and progress in many different cultures, symbolism that is attributed to the pig’s portly stature and a tendency to “root forward” with its snout. (By similar logic, it is considered unlucky in some cultures to eat lobster, which move backward, and chicken, which scratch backward.[5. Salkeld, Lauren. “Lucky Foods for the New Year,” Epicurious, http://www.epicurious.com/articlesguides/holidays/newyearsday/luckyfoods. Accessed December 26, 2015.]) Roast suckling pig is a staple of New Year’s feasts in Cuba and many other Latin American countries. Italians double-down on their luck by enjoying lentils alongside cotechino, pork sausage that is sliced into fat coins, or zampone, a similar sausage that is encased in a hollowed out pig’s trotter like a purse. [6. Riley, Oxford Companion, 195.]
Whether you find yourself with a mouthful of grapes or a spoonful of lentils at midnight this December 31st, here’s wishing you prosperity and happiness in the New Year.
Maximize your good fortune in the New Year by pairing lucky foods with some non-culinary customs that are common throughout Latin America. First, throw a bucket of water out the window or front door to wash away the last year. You could even go so far as to burn away the previous year in effigy—some Cubans (and other Latin Americans) burn an Año Viejo doll to bid farewell to the past year. Next, set yourself up for success in the New Year—Bolivians believe the color of one’s undergarments on New Year’s Eve can affect the events of the coming year: yellow for happiness and money, green for prosperity, and red for love and passion. Hoping to travel more in the New Year? Adopt the tradition of taking an empty suitcase for a walk around the block—the farther the distance, the longer the trip!
Whether you find yourself with a mouthful of grapes or a spoonful of lentils at midnight this December 31st, here’s wishing you prosperity and happiness in the New Year.
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