Top Foods For Good Fortune

You keep a lucky charm with you always or wear a particular color on a particular day. But did you know that food can bring you good fortune too, besides, satisfying your cravings. Bet you didn’t know that! Well, it is true and what better way than the New Year  to share with you the top foods for good fortune that you could consider including in your daily diet. Though, there is no scientific basis to this, just cultural belief and centuries of practicing, that’s it. So, here is the list:

1) Grapes

In deference to a practice that dates back to the start of the 20^th Century, Spaniards, celebrating the New Year, eat twelve grapes at midnight, with one grape for each stroke of the clock. Originating among the grape cultivators of the Alicante region, this was done to keep the surplus of crop in check, while at the same time, people believed that the 12 grapes indicated the 12 months of the coming year and predicted their situation for all the months. For instance if the second grape is a bit unripe or sour, that meant that February will be unsettling. Slowly and steadily, this practice was adopted in the countries like Portugal, Venezuela, Mexico, Ecuador, Cuba, and Peru.

2) Cooked Greens 

You all know that eating plenty of green vegetables, especially leafy green vegetables is a good practice. But did you know that eating cooked greens, around New Year, would also resemble that you would enjoy economic wellbeing. Greens like cabbage, kale, collards, and chard are popularly cooked and eaten during this time because the green leaves look just like folded money.

3) Legumes

Another set of food, which people consume, hoping to become prosperous, is legumes, containing peas, beans, and lentils. These seed like legumes are believed to resemble coins and are eaten keeping in mind the financial rewards. While Germans like to gorge upon pork and legumes as well as split pea soup, Italians eat cotechino con tenticchie, in other words, sausages and green lentils. Japanese like to ring in New Year with its group of symbolic dishes, which includes sweet black beans called kuromame. Brazilians welcome the New Year with a lentil soup or lentils and rice. Residents of the Southern United States traditionally consume a dish called hoppin’ john, made with black-eyed peas or cowpeas. During the Civil War, when the town of Vicksburg, Mississippi was out of food, the residents discovered legumes as well as black-eyed peas, which are considered lucky ever since. This practice soon spread to other parts too.

4) Pork

People living in Cuba, Spain, Hungary, Portugal, and Austria seriously believe that pork is a symbol of progress because it pushes itself forward  by rooting its nose into the ground. Therefore, every New year’s eve, people in these countries eat pork. New Year’s eve meals contain the roast suckling pig while Austrians even go to the extent of decorating their tables with miniature marzipan pigs. Swedes enjoy pork in different forms while Germans eat roast pork and sausages.

5) Fish

You all love to eat fish for a New Year’s eve dinner, without actually being aware that fish, especially cod, has been a popular food to feast upon since the Middle Ages, just like Turkey is on Thanksgiving. There was a reason behind this belief – people could preserve it and travel with it for long distances, when refrigeration was unheard of. Italians eat dried salt cod or baccalà, people in Poland and Germany consume herring as well. Germans even go to 

the extent of putting a few fish scales, along with some money into their wallets. Swedes celebrate the New Year with seafood salad while herring roe represents the Japanese people’s belief that fish increased fertility, long life, and good harvest.

6) Cakes

You are gonna love this! Baked goods, especially cakes, served as a common dessert or savory around this festive season, is also believed to bring good luck. Italians’ chicchiere, Netherlands’ donuts, Holland’s ollie bollen, Mexico’s rosca de reyes, Greeks vasilopita, and Swedes’ rice pudding, the list goes on and on.

Now that you are aware of what would bring you luck, you know what you are going to cook  this year, something out of the top foods for good fortune for sure.