Happy New Year!

This New Year’s Eve and day, I am going to try something new.  Superstitious I am not however I am going to try a few lucky foods and practices to see if I have good “luck.”  Since I believe you make your own “luck”, ringing in 2014 with “lucky” items will be an interesting experiment.

 First, eat something green.  I am going to make a salad with edamame, which is a bean.  Therefore, I have number two eating beans under control.  Eating black-eyed peas, technically a bean, is a southern custom.  I do not think I have ever eaten black eye peas.  I I will make them into a “burger” with green (something green) peppers and leeks.  I thought if I add other ingredients, I would be able to eat it.  Green and beans represent money. 

 

 Since I am a vegetarian, eating pork will not happen for me.   A pig digs forward with its nose thus moving forward into the future. Since I like moving forward, I will make pig cookies; I can eat a piggy cookie or two.  From Japan comes the custom of eating soba noodles; the Japanese believe you must slurp the whole noodle and not chew it so you will have long lasting luck.  Who would not want long lasting luck?  The Japanese also eat black beans for good luck though I am not sure of the symbolism though I have the new Triscuit Bean crackers.

 

The Spanish eat 12 grapes as the clock strikes midnight, one for every strike.  I did find organic grapes from the San Joaquin Valley.  Each grape represents a month; if the grape is sweet then you will have a sweet month and if the grape is tart…  Also at midnight, I must smashed a pomegranate at the door observing the further the distance the seeds fall the more luck I will have, that custom comes from the Greeks.   

New Year’s Day begins with a round food item.  A bagel, donut, or killing two birds with one stone, cornbread in a circle.  Cornbread is golden in the color for the riches of gold and the circle brings the year full circle.   For good measure, I am making a round apple cake and hiding a coin in the cake.  That comes from my mom an Armenian; she said it was a way of transporting money during the war to avoid theft.  I read that the person getting the coin will be the luckiest of them all.  I wonder who that will be.  

 

I will be testing these lucky symbolisms in 2014.  Enjoy your celebration whatever it maybe.