New Year's Day Traditions

[rsshreck32]

Here in western PA, where I've lived all my life, it is a common tradition to eat pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Eve/Day. The tradition carried over from Germany and was perpetuated by the PA Dutch community. Do you have any New Year's meal traditions. I'm curious what other regions may eat traditionally on New Year's.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Pork chops (but my grandparents swore by hog jawl), Blackeyed peas, cheese grits, and turnip greens (but I prefer collards).
I use gouda cheese in my grits. And, of course we always have a pecan pie.

 

[FLDRD]

Black eye peas with pork, and collard greens are southern tradition. Maybe corn bread too.
Did a "version" of that...

 

[SBC]

Interesting. I grew up with traditions surrounding holy days, but not secular new year. I actually wasn't aware that there were more rooted traditions than the pop-cultural parties.

 

[El Capitán]

Pork chops, black eyed peas, cooked cabbage. Been that way as long as I can remember.

 

[warren]

A six bone standing rib graded Prime. Lots of French Dips in the following days. Yorkshire Pudding is also called for. Vegetables, roasted potatoes, are available for those wanting a more balanced meal. A joint of beef, pudding, potatoes is an English thing I believe.

Bowl games on the television for the son-in-law, always.

Oops! Forgot to include a few bottles of cheauneuf du pape. The Pope knows wine!

 

[Grangerous]

Pork roll, Egg and Cheese sandwich and a Wawa coffee. … this is New Jersey.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

Beef and crab and black eyed peas New Year’s Eve. A decadent chocolate desert if we are hungry - this year we skipped it, lol.

New Year’s Day? Never any food tradition on either side of our families growing up and we haven’t developed any. Usually a day to not eat all that much except for normal football snacks.

 

[David D. Davidson]

No food traditions, but we do make lemon pigs for good luck and there’s usually a good amount of hair of the dog involved.

I always try to make enough leftovers of snacky NYE food so I can be lazy and recover on New Year’s Day. I don’t drink heavily, but even a couple of drinks has me feeling less than fresh the following day.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I believe that the idea comes from the Germanic/English roots of slaughtering a hog for the winter. The pork represents positivity (or something like that, the greens represent prosperity, and the beans are like health or something. The grits or cornbread, basically the same thing, just makes it all more palatable.

It is supposed to be the first meal of the New Year, but you are supposed to also have all of your laundry washed and folded.

Growing up, just between like 10 and 12 we also set off fireworks, until that just becomes a lame ass thing to do. Recently we have to deal with morons firing off firearms into the air, because they think the bullets get stuck in the clouds or something. I am not even really impressed with big firework displays these days. But, I guess it impresses the kiddos.

 

[pappymac]

Over the years I have heard many different explanations about what you should eat on New Years Day. Haven't figured out if any of them are true.

I've read that eating pork on New Years may come from the Pennsylvania Dutch who believed that since pigs root going forward that pork symbolized moving forward in life. Their custom was to eat pork with sauerkraut and the cabbage based dish supposedly symbolized prosperity.

Eating black-eyed peas is supposed to be for good luck. Some trace this belief back to the Civil War but it may go back thousands of year further. The Civil War story is that when the Union soldiers invaded the South they decimated Southern crops but didn't touch black-eyed peas because they considered them to be only fit for livestock. That left the black-eyed peas (which are actually beans) for Southerners who felt "Lucky" that they had something to eat.

Greens - mostly collard, mustard and turnip - is said to symbolize money because the large flat green leaves resembles paper money. Cabbage was added into this because the Dutch made it into sauerkraut.