Triple Good Luck For The New Year

Many cultures have traditional foods they eat for good luck and prosperity for the New Year. For instance, in Spain, they eat 12 grapes at midnight. In Mexico, they eat tamales. The Japanese eat soba noodles and residents of New Orleans eat King cakes. These are just some of the many, many traditional foods from around the world that people eat on New Year’s Day. Many cultures eat round foods because they are supposed to represent money and coins. The theory is if you don’t eat round foods on New Year’s Day, you could be doomed to a year of bad luck. We (the whole world) have already had enough bad luck these past two years, so I am NOT going to be the one who goes against these traditions. It is long past the time for some good luck to come around. In my house, we honor our cultural traditions for New Year’s Day as well.

My mother was from Southeast Texas, and all over the South, people eat black-eyed peas for good luck on New Year’s Day. Black-eyed peas are associated with a mystical and mythical power to bring good luck. We have always had black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day. I make them different ways every year. It doesn’t matter how how make them, you just need to eat them. In addition, legend says you are supposed to eat exactly 365 black-eyed peas, no more, no less, but one for each day of the year, for good luck on each day. We didn’t do this, but we did eat our black-eyed peas. This year I made a black-eyed pea salad.

Larry is German, though he and his family never knew about this, but one of the German traditions is to eat pretzels on New Year’s Day. Larry and I have been eating pretzels as well as black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day for quite a few years now. Sometimes I make traditional pretzels and sometimes I make pretzel bread. This year I made pretzel buns.

Pork is also supposed to be a good luck food for the new year. Pork is for prosperity, the greens/ cabbage is for money and black-eyed peas are for luck, so you put them all together and hopefully, you’ve got a good year coming up. I cooked a big ham for New Year’s Eve, and then we made some ham sliders with the pretzel buns and honey mustard for New Year’s Day and served them alongside my black-eyed pea salad. We should be set for lots of good luck this upcoming year. That’s certainly the plan at least.

Happy New Year to all. May it be filled with good luck, good health and prosperity for all. ‘Til next time.