New Year's Eve meals differ around the world, yet all those who celebrate the day eat and drink while wishing for good fortune in the coming year
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Almost everywhere in the world and along with all beliefs, food is the delicious essential feature of New Year’s Eve celebrations. It sometimes comes along as a table of feast that dominates the evening and sometimes is just an offering to gods so that wishes for the coming year may be granted.
Let us take a look at the holiday tables from a randomly chosen group of countries around the world. In most parts of the United States, shrimp and other finger food is present for New Year’s Eve as people celebrate the new year in the culmination of a week of festivities that started with the traditional stuffed turkey dinner at Christmas on Dec. 25.
Chinese people celebrate the New Year with colorful feasts between the Jan. 21 and Feb. 21. They usually use fruit images in their decorations. Tangerines are believed to be symbols of good fortune due to their color and shiny look and because odd numbers are taken to be unlucky, the Chinese give each other tangerines in couples. The celebrations last for days and on the fourth day of the New Year, they make offerings to the Kitchen God who is supposed to have come back from his visit to the Jade Emperor on that specific day. Then, after the fifth day, all the food that was offered to the gods has to be cleaned.
As lentils represent happiness and wealth in Brazil, on the first day of the New Year, it is almost obligatory to eat lentil soup or another dish prepared with lentils. A similar thing happens in Italy. Italians try to include a type of pork sausage on a bed of lentils in their New Year’s Eve menu because to them, the pork sausage symbolizes wealth and the green color and the round shape of lentils symbolizes money.
As we have moved to Europe, we should take a look at a custom from Spain. At the Plaza del Sol in Madrid, when the clock begins to strike 12 a.m., people start eating grapes and make sure to eat one grape with each stroke to complete the number to twelve. This is a custom expected to guarantee twelve months of happiness.
As for our closest neighbor Greece, a special bread is prepared for the evening and a coin is hidden in it. During the New Year’s Eve dinner, this bread is cut and the first slice is announced to be for Jesus, the second for the head of the household and the third for the whole house. If the coin comes out in the third slice, it means that that year spring which brings abundance in the form of crops will come early.
Talking about abundance, I want to mention another tradition of the Eastern Mediterranean related to food although it is not about the table. In most counties in the area, at exactly 12 a.m., a big ripe pomegranate is dropped on the doorsteps of the house to make its seeds scatter around. This is expected to bring as much wealth and abundance in the New Year as the pomegranate holds in the number of its seeds.
As one goes around the world in the footsteps of different traditions, one comes to the realization that wherever on earth you may be, everything placed on a table on the New Year’s Eve is put there with the hope that it will help you forget the pains of the past year and help the happiness expected from the New Year to materialize.
Let us take a look at the holiday tables from a randomly chosen group of countries around the world. In most parts of the United States, shrimp and other finger food is present for New Year’s Eve as people celebrate the new year in the culmination of a week of festivities that started with the traditional stuffed turkey dinner at Christmas on Dec. 25.
Chinese people celebrate the New Year with colorful feasts between the Jan. 21 and Feb. 21. They usually use fruit images in their decorations. Tangerines are believed to be symbols of good fortune due to their color and shiny look and because odd numbers are taken to be unlucky, the Chinese give each other tangerines in couples. The celebrations last for days and on the fourth day of the New Year, they make offerings to the Kitchen God who is supposed to have come back from his visit to the Jade Emperor on that specific day. Then, after the fifth day, all the food that was offered to the gods has to be cleaned.
As lentils represent happiness and wealth in Brazil, on the first day of the New Year, it is almost obligatory to eat lentil soup or another dish prepared with lentils. A similar thing happens in Italy. Italians try to include a type of pork sausage on a bed of lentils in their New Year’s Eve menu because to them, the pork sausage symbolizes wealth and the green color and the round shape of lentils symbolizes money.
As we have moved to Europe, we should take a look at a custom from Spain. At the Plaza del Sol in Madrid, when the clock begins to strike 12 a.m., people start eating grapes and make sure to eat one grape with each stroke to complete the number to twelve. This is a custom expected to guarantee twelve months of happiness.
As for our closest neighbor Greece, a special bread is prepared for the evening and a coin is hidden in it. During the New Year’s Eve dinner, this bread is cut and the first slice is announced to be for Jesus, the second for the head of the household and the third for the whole house. If the coin comes out in the third slice, it means that that year spring which brings abundance in the form of crops will come early.
Talking about abundance, I want to mention another tradition of the Eastern Mediterranean related to food although it is not about the table. In most counties in the area, at exactly 12 a.m., a big ripe pomegranate is dropped on the doorsteps of the house to make its seeds scatter around. This is expected to bring as much wealth and abundance in the New Year as the pomegranate holds in the number of its seeds.
As one goes around the world in the footsteps of different traditions, one comes to the realization that wherever on earth you may be, everything placed on a table on the New Year’s Eve is put there with the hope that it will help you forget the pains of the past year and help the happiness expected from the New Year to materialize.
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