New Year's Recipes

By Tara Parker-Pope

I'm a firm believer in eating foods that symbolize good luck and expanding fortune at the beginning of the year. Usually I stick with my black-eyed peas salad. But I've always been curious about how people in other countries usher in the New Year.

Lentils and raisins are present on Italian tables because they resemble coins and swell when cooked. They're usually accompanied by pork, a symbol of prosperity and abundance. In other parts of the world, different beans stand in for lentils - chickpeas in Provence, black-eyed peas in the American South - also because they're small and round like coins, and expand when they cook.

Greens - spinach, collards, kale and cabbage - symbolize money (think greenbacks) and growth. Other foods that represent good fortune in the coming year include rice, golden foods like cornbread and saffron, and baked goods shaped like rings (often a coin is hidden inside).

Often sweets are eaten so that the year will be, yes, sweet. In Spain, Portugal and parts of Latin America, revelers dine on 12 sweet grapes, symbolizing the 12 months of the year, at midnight on December 31st. The Japanese believe in soba noodles, whose long, lean shape symbolizes health and longevity.

Fish symbolizes good luck in many cultures. Indeed, it strikes me that with the exception of some rich pastries, most of the good luck foods are also very good for you. Good luck does begin, after all, with good health.