New Years Foods that Bring Luck, Love and Money – Abilene’s Top 5

The most popular New Years food is the Black Eyed Peas with cornbread. Eating black eyed peas on New Years day is believed to bring the person consuming them good fortune. This is believed to have migrated from Italy where is was thought to be similar to the "Italian's green lentils," as they are round which is said to represent coins and green for the color of money. At sometime in our not so distant history the "lentils" were replaced by black eyed peas. It's common thought that Black eyed peas, cornbread and in some circles, collard greens are a traditional Southern dish in America. Some southerners say that sweet cornbread will bring good health.

Cabbage or collard greens are said to be for “the green folding money.” Collard greens, spinach, kale and cabbage are all said to represent paper money. It's not hard to see why these green leafy foods are paralleled to a New Years superstition of bringing you money. It's believed that consuming these on the new day of the new year that good fortune will come to you. I've tried this and I ate a lot, and I mean a lot of greens and cabbage, because if a little would bring me some "green folding money" then eating a lot of it should net me the lottery. The only thing I can say with some certainty, is that I did get a lot of something and it wasn't green folding money, but rather green gases being emitted from my body. So, good luck on this one.

This one was told to me by two different people one a coworker of polish decent and the other a friend of German heritage. My friend said, that consuming (here we go again with the gaseous foods) sauerkraut is said to bring you fortune and fame. I guess they go hand in hand, I'm not sure. I mean the eating cabbage/sauerkraut a food that causes gas in a good many Americans, and the outlet for the gases is near the wallet where you would keep your new found fortune. Nonetheless, the correlation between the sauerkraut, the fame and the fortune is derived from the fact that cabbage is green and leafy and the sauerkraut takes practice to perfect, much like the famous. I'll have mine with a good Polish dog please.

In an effort to show the symbolism of America's opulence eating meat showed you believed the year to come is bringing you lots of wealth and happiness. If you partake of any meat let it be pork instead of chicken or beef. It is fact that when a pig has it's snout to the ground, it is searching for something new to eat and is always moving in a forward motion. Unlike chickens that scratch backwards and cows that don't move and are symbolic of stagnation. Many other nationalities like Germans, the Swiss, Italians and the Irish all eat pork because of the fatty meat is also symbolic of fattening wallets.

This is from my Hispanic heritage, as long as I can remember my late mom and all my Tia's (aunts) would slave in a kitchen all day putting together a grand feast we would all eat after midnight Mass. The one thing we kids wanted to make sure we got our hands on, were the Bunuelos, the Spanish speaking countries answer to fritters (or rather a crispy version of a sopapilla). In reality the dish originated in Europe A deep fried flour tortilla that is covered in sugar, cinnamon and other spices. I recall many years not getting what I really wanted for Christmas and my last and final hope lied within the Bunuelos. Somehow if I could consume one of those tasty treats, maybe, just maybe my luck would change and I could get what I really wanted. To this day, just the smell of Bunuelos will evoke memories and unleash my imagination.