Category Food

Germany and its neighbour Austria’s Sylvesterabend (Saint Sylvester’s Day) celebrations coincide with New Year’s. Glucksschwein or marzipan pig is a popular traditional confection distributed among family and friends during the New Year’s Eve feast. This treat, made with sugar and almond paste, is a tradition meant for good fortune. Schwein gehabt is German for “having a pig”, an expression to state that someone is lucky. The tradition is believed to have its roots in the medieval period, when a farmer who bred a lot of pigs was considered fortunate.

Some Glücksschweinchen or good luck piggies come with a little clover on them. Legend has it; Eve took a four-leaf clover out of the Garden of Eden. So when you find one, you have found yourself a little piece of paradise.

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Cotechino con lenticchie (sausage with lentil stew) is an inseparable part of Italian New Year celebrations. According to traditional beliefs, lentils represent money and good fortune, and pork (in the form of sausages) is a symbol of prosperity and richness and is believed to bring good luck.

You may be wondering why Lentils are used in this Traditional Italian dish? Lentils are seen as coin-shaped legumes which has a relation to wealth. It is therefore believed that Lentils are symbolic for this tradition and so it is always served with Cotechino or Zampone at Midnight New Years Eve to bring you prosperity & wealth in the New Year.

Lentils can be purchased from almost any Supermarket or Delicatessen and come in dry form or in tins depending on your preferred cooking style.

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Pomegranates represent fortune, fertility, abundance and good luck in Turkey. Though pomegranates are a vital part of their cuisine, on New Year’s Eve the fruit is usually smashed against the ground. This is mostly done at the doorstep. It is believed that the more the seeds that burst out, the more good fortune one will acquire. This practice is based on the legend that one fruit bears multiple seeds and has the ability to become many trees in the future. This tradition is also followed in the neighbouring country Armenia.

Each autumn, when pomegranates are at their best, you will see stalls spring up all over Turkey selling fresh juice in markets and on street corners. Pomegranates are grown throughout Turkey, especially in coastal regions around the Aegean and Mediterranean and tourist resorts like Dalyan and Side. Many properties in Turkey have pomegranate bushes in their gardens, the Turks believing the harvest will bring luck to their family home. Pomegranates are also incorporated in many Turkish dishes. The kernels are often found in salads, and a sweet and popular pomegranate molasses (syrup) is widely used by chefs to marinate meat or incorporated into sauces.

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In Japan, people eat soba noodles (thin noodles made with buckwheat) at midnight with their loved ones, as they bid farewell to the old year and welcome the next year. The noodles, thin and long, are believed to represent long life. The noodles are, therefore, slurped whole instead of being bitten. The Japanese also follow another tradition known as the mochitsuki, where families gather to pound mocha (Japanese rice cakes). The cakes are then eaten as a desert after the meal.

The most basic soba dish is mori soba in which boiled, cold soba noodles are eaten with a soya based dipping sauce (tsuyu). Many soba dishes are eaten throughout the year, while others are only available seasonally.

Like pasta, soba noodles are available in dried form in supermarkets, but they taste best if freshly made by hand from flour and water. Soba making has long been a popular hands-on activity for domestic and international travelers. The activity is offered by many craft villages and travel tour companies.

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Known as the New Year soup, Tteokguk is a soup made with meat stock and rice cakes. The white tteok (rice cakes) used in the soup symbolizes purity and is seen as a symbol of a fresh start. Though the origin of the soup is unknown, one of the first mentions of the dish dates back to a 19th Century cookbook. Due to the high price of rice, the soup was reserved only for special occasions such as the New Year and birthdays. New Year is seen as an important event as Korean consider themselves a year older every New Year. The day, therefore, marks the “Korean birthday” for most of them.

The broth is generally made by simmering the main protein (beef, chicken, pork, pheasant, seafood) in a ganjang-seasoned stock. The stock is then strained to clarify the broth, and long cylinder-shaped garaetteok are thin-sliced diagonally and boiled in the clear broth. Garnish is added before serving; the garnish may vary by region and personal taste, but usual staples are pan-fried julienned egg yolks and whites, gim and spring onions.[4]A drizzle of sesame oil is common just prior to serving the teokguk.

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In Spain, the locals welcome the New Year by eating 12 grapes, one by one, for every toll of the clock bell. It is considered a symbol of luck if all the 12 grapes are consumed on time. In order to finish all the grapes, some even peel and de-seed them for easier consumption. According to popular legend, the grapes represent the months of the year and sweet grapes indicate a happy month whereas a sour one indicates a rough month. This tradition is also adopted in several Spanish-speaking countries such as Mexico.

The twelve grapes date back from at least 1895 but became established in 1909. In December of that year, some alicantese vine growers popularized this custom to better sell huge numbers of grapes from an excellent harvest. According to the tradition, eating the twelve grapes leads to a year of good luck and prosperity. In some areas, it is believed that it wards away witches and general evil, although this “magic” is treated like an old heritage, and in modern days it’s viewed as a cultural tradition to welcome the new year.

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