"new years food" news and stories

Considering how many Americans will spend much of 2010 looking for a job, the "help wanted" pages might make the perfect New Year's Day snack.

Feasting on foods that symbolize an eater's desires for the coming year is a longstanding global tradition: Jews traditionally serve honeycake on Rosh Hashanah to guarantee a sweet year, Peruvians indulge in turmeric-dusted potatoes that share a hue with the gold they hope to acquire, and Italians eat coin-shaped lentils. A Japanese belief holds that anyone who can swallow an unbroken soba noodle without chewing will enjoy a long life. (Unless, of course, the celebrant chokes on the noodle.)

But in most of the U.S., such practices were derided as quaint and misguided for most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While a few first-generation immigrants observed traditions imported from their homelands -- serving pork and sauerkraut as the Germans and Swedes did or baking sweet Greek cakes -- the leading New Year's foods were the dishes of luxury: oysters, sweetbreads and sparkling wine were staples of the well-to-do holiday table throughout the 1800s.

Many of us know that here in the US, it is traditionally thought to be good luck to eat beans, ham and greens around the New Year, to ensure prosperity and abundance in the year to come (check out Kat's post on Hoppin' John for more details on this auspicious combo).

This year, the blogger behind the site I'm Mad and I Eat decided to approach the traditional New Year's meal from a new angle. She cooked up a slab of Spam and made herself some Hawaiian-style Spam musubi. She served it up with a side of steamed edamame and kimchi. Beans, ham, rice and greens for a nice little New Year's meal.

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