6 New Year's Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What are the 7 Lucky new year's food traditions around? ›

Greens, pork, and cornbread, as well as black-eyed peas, cowpeas, or beans, are some of the typical symbolic foods served on New Year's Day. When planning your dinner menu, add the Southern foods that some say bring good luck and avoid those that may do just the opposite in the new year.

Looking for prosperity? As Southern tradition dictates, black-eyed peas, greens, and cornbread represent pennies, dollars, and gold, respectively, so eating them together on New Year's will keep your purse full all year long.

White-Colored Foods are a no no on New Year's Day, foods that are all white in color, such as rice, bread, eggs, and tofu. According to ancient Chinese beliefs, white symbolizes death– so it is considered unlucky to eat white colored-food on New Year's Day.

It's said that you shouldn't eat winged fowl (read: birds like turkey or chicken), bottom feeders (like shrimp or catfish), or any seafood that swims backward or side to side (like lobster or crab).

Good luck is an elusive thing, and wings can help good luck just fly away. It's doubly important not to eat chicken on New Year's Day. Not only do chickens have wings, which as you have learned, can make your good luck fly away, they also eat by scratching backward.

Lobster, cows, and chicken are all considered unlucky animals to eat on New Year's because of how they move. Read on for more foods superstitious people try to avoid on the holiday.

Don't Clean the House on New Year's Day - You will wash away any good luck coming your way.

What is the luckiest food to eat on new year's Day? ›

A ubiquitous New Year's Day good luck food in Europe and the United States, leafy greens from kale to collards are eaten to represent money and wealth. In the American South, collard greens especially are eaten with two other New Year's good luck foods, black-eyed peas and cornbread, for some extra fortune.

For most people, it is traditional to start the New Year as they mean to go on with swept floors, folded laundry, and a sparklingly clean abode. But don't grab your sponge and washcloth today because superstition says it's bad luck to do chores on January 1.

Meanwhile, cabbage leaves are thought to bring prosperity to those who eat them on New Year's Day. Long believed to be an antidote to an overzealous night on the town, menudo is part of many holiday celebrations, especially breakfast on New Year's Day.

In the south your New Year meal must include collard greens, black-eyed peas, pork and cornbread. They're said to bring good health, wealth and good luck. Black-eyed peas in some form, always. They can be made in Hoppin' John, a salad, or just cooked like regular beans (some people add ham, bacon, or other pork.)

Shrimp – Good Fortune

Shrimp is a savory symbol of good fortune. Eating shrimp is said to bring you happiness into your new year. The idea of good fortune is that of overall success and prosperity. It means more than just wealth, but also joy, health, laughter, success, and betterment.

Estonians feast as many as 7, 9, or even 12 times on New Year's Eve, as they believe for each meal consumed, the person gains the strength of that many men the following year.

Like other cultures that consume lentils and other round foods, the 12 round fruits of the Philippines symbolize coins and prosperity and are thought to bring good luck for the New Year. The number 12 is for each month of the year, although 13 fruits are sometimes consumed as well.

Master Hanz Cua said that the 12 lucky fruits in welcoming the new year are apples, oranges, bananas, watermelons, papaya, melons, pears, kiat-kiat, grapes, pineapples, mangoes, and lemon or calamansi.

Originating in Spain, the tradition of eating grapes at the stroke of midnight is believed to welcome good fortune and prosperity in the new year. It's known as "Las doce uvas de la suerte," or "The twelve grapes of luck,” and each of the 12 grapes represents a month of the new year.