New Year's Day Food Traditions

[Corinne]

jkath's New Year's Eve food thread got me thinking about this. Do any of you serve a traditional meal on New Year's Day & do you know the history behind the tradition?
I will serve what I always do (another PA Dutch thing): Pork & Saurkraut with mashed potatoes. But I don't really know why this is the tradition - it just is.
I was thinking that I might prepare a few different regional traditional foods & ask the shelter if I can cook & serve again on New Year's Day if they don't already have someone lined up.

[pdswife]

Not really. We just make what ever sounds good at the time.

[licia]

We always have blackeyed peas, rice, coleslaw, and cornbread for our New Years' day but this year are invited to an all day shindig which doesn't include those foods. I suppose we will postpone our usual meal til a day or so later since we go to the farm for a week. We are having a barn raising while there and it would be good to have that. I think the tradition behind our meal is superstition from ages past. The peas (lots of things to eat are for health, coleslaw (green stuff, many people eat greens of some sort or other) for wealth. We've been quite healthy and while not wealthy, we aren't usually broke, so I suppose the green stuff works to some effect.

[AllenOK]

My family always made Black-eyed Peas, fried potatoes, and cornbread. I know the Black-eyed Peas (or a dish called Hoppin' John) are traditional, as many folks believe they bring good luck when you eat them on New Year's.

PeppA and her family always do a seafood boil they call "Beer Shrimp", in which they cook shrimp, crab, and sometimes a lobster tail or two in a beer/vinegar broth.

[licia]

Does the seafood have a "significance" or just good food?

[urmaniac13]

In Italy the traditional New Years Eve dinner is a cotecchino (a kind of big pork sausage, the authentic one is stuffed in a pig's toe, but we opt for just regular sausage shape...) cooked with lentils. They are supposed to bring good luck, so it is kind of a mystery why there are so many disgruntled grouchy people around... Well they are nice, and then we move onto champagne with either ricciarelli or panforte, both are almond based sweet treat from Siena, Italy.

[Piccolina]

Growing up, if were at home, we always had a bounty of wonderful homemade appies. It was one of only two days a year that sausage rolls would make an apperance in our house (the other being Christmas Eve, and I tell you, when I first moved out on my own, it felt so cool to be able to buy them at other times of the year, a little weird, but certianly cool). Other favourites like devilled eggs, a cheese board, cold cuts, pickles, spinach dip, things made with filo and the like were common, depending on the budget at the time.

However, if we were going to my grandparents (and this was more when I was quite young) we had a very traditional Russian/Ukrainian sort of meal. With borscht, blinis, perogies, creamy dill sauces, tarts (I remember one with peas, it was fabulous - I should see if I can talk the recipe out of my gran!), smoked fish and meats - it was awesome!

In the days since childhood though I've mostly stuck to a middle ground between an assortment of appetizers or like Pdswife, whatever we are in the mood for that day

[licia]

I suppose our traditions were much like many others. One thing I remember as a child was candy in our stocking - always kinds that we didn't get often. After Christmas was over, usually around New Years or maybe even after, we would be sitting around the fireplace and mom would bring out a basket with candies in it. Dad would crack all different kinds of nuts and pass them out to us and mom would give us the candy to go with the nuts. I don't know why we never got to expect this, but it was always a surprise. I don't remember ever connecting it to the same kind that was in our stockings until much later in life - really after I left home. My mom is 88 years old and when I mention how much something like that meant to me, she tears us and just smiles. I wonder if it meant as much to my siblings as it did to me. I must ask them.

[Ishbel]

The Scots use New Year's Eve as their biggest celebration of the year, not New Year's Day. Hogmanay has many traditions, like being First-Footed by a tall, dark handsome man - with a lump of coal in one pocket (and, in the case of most Scotsmen I know, a bottle of whisky in the other!). He should be the 'first foot' over your doorstep after 'the bells' at midnight on Hogmanay. Red haired people are not considered lucky - so you will see gangs of us, corralled into a room to save the disaster of us being the first 'visitor' for the year.

We spend the time between Christmas and new year ensuring the house is spotless - you should start the year with everything cleaned to within an inch of its life! Also cooking. I made the black bun back at the beginning of December, ditto sausage rolls and bridies. The steak pies are made on hogmanay, ditto the shortbread. I will also cook a ham and a joint of finest aberdeen angus beef.

It is also a time of reconciliation. Most quarrels are 'mended' in time for Hogmanay. Another way of starting off the new year with a clean slate.

Visitors start calling into homes by about 6 pm - and it goes on for two or three days!

Edinburgh hosts what they claim is the biggest street party in the world on Hogmanay. Here's the website http://www.edinburghshogmanay.org/events/programme.html

[texasgirl]

Backeyed peas with ham hocks, collard greens and cornbread.

[AllenOK]

Originally Posted by licia

Does the seafood have a "significance" or just good food?

I'm not sure. Now, if I could just teach them that you only need to poach the shrimp for a few minutes, instead of cooking it for 30......

[buckytom]

water, tums, aspirin, something really greasy, more aspirin, more tums, regular coke at room temp, toast, chinese food.

[mudbug]

Originally Posted by texasgirl

Backeyed peas with ham hocks, collard greens and cornbread.

Subtract the collards and add mimosas, and you're eatin' in my kitchen on New Year's Day.

We also make a big pot of Rotel dip with sausage and put out various chips.

Oh, and don't forget to bring your leftover Christmas treats. We all eat each other's to get rid of them for the new year.

[licia]

Taking the treats is a wonderful idea - I'd never thought about that. We didn't even touch our desserts hardly. I have 2 pies with only 1 piece missing and one that wasn't cut at all - more than half of a fruitcake and about half of a mandarin orange cake (the rest I sent home with sil. I don't know why we weren't hungry for dessert this year. I tried to have a delicious, but healthy dinner so perhaps that was the reason everyone passed on most of the dessert.

[texasgirl]

Originally Posted by buckytom

water, tums, aspirin, something really greasy, more aspirin, more tums, regular coke at room temp, toast, chinese food.

This is more like what happens, but, you asked for traditions.


Mudbug, I'm the only one in the house that will eat the collard greens, noone else cares for them.

[kadesma]

New Years Eve the whole bunch of us go to our favorite Chinese place and have dinner, we then come back here and have dessert later in the evening..It's pretty quiet, except for the kiddos. We just talk and play games with the kids...Nothing special..Just us
kadesma

[jkath]

Originally Posted by buckytom

water, tums, aspirin, something really greasy, more aspirin, more tums, regular coke at room temp, toast, chinese food.

Buckytom+silly comments = my coffee all over my monitor.


We always have finger foods for New Year's Eve's game night, and then on New Year's Day, it's whatever I can forrage through the fridge for.

[Corinne]

Reviving this thread - we're having a few couples over for New Year's Day. So far the menu is Pork & Saurkraut in one crockpot, kielbasa, brats, etc. with saurkraut in another crock pot. Mashed taters on the side. To me, the menu is really lacking.

Can anyone share other traditional New Year's Day meals from different parts of the country? I have heard of Hoppin' John a number of times - I think it's a southern thing. I need to research that one & find a good recipe.

Thank you!

[Barb L.]

New Years day is Football - so, lots of munchies - cheese, sausage, meatballs, veggie try, cheeseballs, dips, chips and crackers. May do a Boston Butt, for sandwiches !

[Uncle Bob]

Fairly tradtional across the South...Black-eyed peas and hog jowl (meat that comes from the cheek of the hog..cured kinda like bacon...can be bought in a chunk or sliced) or smoked hocks, and of course cornbread...Tradition says it brings good luck.

Please use the dry variety.(not the canned version) soak over night in plenty of water then cook until tender with your favorite seasonings...salt, pepper garlic, onions, peppers, thyme, cumin, and so on.....