7 recipes for a lucky New Year's Day meal (2024)

FAQs

What is the traditional new year's Day menu? ›

Greens, pork, and cornbread, as well as black-eyed peas, cowpeas, or beans, are some of the typical symbolic foods served on New Year's Day. When planning your dinner menu, add the Southern foods that some say bring good luck and avoid those that may do just the opposite in the new year.

Roast goose or chicken, stuffed with apples, is traditionally eaten for New Year's dinner. Eating as many pieces of meat as possible during New Year's dinner is believed to ensure happiness in the coming year, and a "bountiful table" will ensure wealth.

Black-Eyed Peas

Traditionally paired with collard greens and cornbread, black-eyed peas are a staple New Year's good luck food. The peas symbolize coins, and practices of consuming these legumes around celebrations date back to Ancient Egypt.

Foods white in color, such as rice, bread, eggs, and tofu. According to ancient Chinese beliefs, white symbolizes death– so it is considered unlucky to eat on New Year's Day.

Pigs, Luck, and the Pennsylvania Dutch

According to lore, the forward movement of pigs when they root around for food on the ground signifies a “moving forward” trajectory in life, and thus pork is a favorable meat to enjoy to start the year off on the right track.

Ham is often a holiday centerpiece, but pork is specifically thought to bring good luck on New Year's Day.

Black-eyed peas are an example of this, and they are part of one of New Year's most colorful dishes, Hoppin' John, which is eaten in many southern states. Hoppin' John is made with black-eyed peas or dried red peas, combined with hog jowls, bacon, or salt pork. Rice, butter, salt, or other vegetables may be added.

Avoid Winged Fowl

If you don't want your luck to fly away in the new year, it's best to avoid any animal that has wings and scratches in the dirt, like turkey or chicken. These birds scratch backward, which can imply dwelling in the past or—even worse—the need to scrape by for your living.

(You know, all of the sudden Jan. 2 doesn't sound so lucky.) Conversely, it's considered bad luck to eat crab or lobster on New Year's Day, as they move sideways, and no bottom-dwellers either, like catfish, or you may become a bottom-feeder as well.

According to Southern lore, you will have good luck for the entire year if you have the traditional New Year's Day supper. In the South, that means a meal of collard greens, hoppin' John, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and pot likker soup.

What is a traditional black New Year's dinner? ›

Specifically in the South, eating a bowl of black-eyed peas and collard greens has become the standard on New Year's Day. Many celebrating the new year might just be going along with the offered dishes without the context.

If there was any corn left they made cornbread. So, theses three items have come to represent hope and prosperity for the New Year. The peas represent coins, the greens - paper money and the cornbread, gold.

Estonians feast as many as 7, 9, or even 12 times on New Year's Eve, as they believe for each meal consumed, the person gains the strength of that many men the following year. Across the U.S. South, communities dig into collard greens and black-eyed peas for luck and prosperity on New Year's Day.

If you eat a mince pie each day over the twelve days of Christmas it brings good luck for the year ahead.

According to Southern lore, you will have good luck for the entire year if you have the traditional New Year's Day supper. In the South, that means a meal of collard greens, hoppin' John, black-eyed peas, cornbread, and pot likker soup.