Ring In the New Year With These Five Lucky Foods

There are healthy foods and then there are healthy foods. Over the years, countries and cultures around the world have been developing their own versions of fortuitous fare that promotes everything from health to long life and prosperity. These fun foods can easily be incorporated into your New Year’s Eve gathering or New Year’s Day lounging to bring some good luck to you and your guests as well as a bit of worldly tradition. Whether it’s a casual stir fry or a fancy roasted pork tenderloin, this online cooking school has some fun fare to help bring you all the best in 2016.

Collard Greens:
Typically served in the Southern U.S. on New Year’s Day, collard’s leafy green appearance is reminiscent of that one thing just about everyone could use a bit more of: cold, hard cash. Either thrown in with some black eyed peas (another traditional New Year’s food) or cooked on their own with some bacon fat, onion and crushed red pepper, collard greens can be a fun and healthy way to celebrate this holiday. Our recommendation: cook up a big pot of pulled pork the day before, make some macaroni and cheese and serve these babies on the side. You’ll have one heck of a meal to soak up that hangover and leave your belly feeling very lucky indeed.

Noodles:
This Asian tradition has been going on in countries like Asia and Japan for centuries. The trick is to keep your noodles as long as possible and to never cut them up to get the most luck for longevity. Prepare some ramen or soba noodles in an Asian-inspired, veggie-filled soup or stir fry to make a gratifying, healthy meal out of it. Legend has it the longer the noodles you slurp up the longer you’ll live!

Ring-Shaped Cakes:
Representing the year of life coming full circle, ring-shaped cakes are popular New Year’s sweets across the world. But even more than that, countries have developed their own traditions of putting trinkets or coins inside the cake to add a bit more fun to the process of eating it. Take the Bulgarian banitsa for instance. In this filo dough based cake filled with egg and feta, people write good fortunes, wrap them in tinfoil and then tuck them in the dough before baking. Then, whoever cuts into it and finds one of those little pieces of paper inherits that good fortune. Kind of fun, right? There are tons of great traditions from around the world similar to that like Mexico’s rosca de reyes, Greece’s vasilopita and Norway and Sweden’s rice pudding almond hunt. So if you want to add a bit of surprise to your sweets, try looking up one of these great recipes. May the good fortune be with you!

Pigs:
The pig is a sign of luck in cultures around the world. Unlucky for the pig, eating them is part of the ways you can inherit this animal’s good fortune. The idea behind it is that since the pig rummages forward when it looks for food, that it symbolizes moving forward in one’s life. From Austria to Cuba, cooking any pork byproduct in any which way is synonymous with saying goodbye to the year before and embracing the year ahead. Plus, they’re said to bring a bit of good luck with every bite!

Grapes:
Perhaps one of the more specific and more fun traditions, what Spain does with grapes on New Year’s Eve can be an exciting way to ring in the New Year that doesn’t involve swapping germs. The way the Spanish do it is they have 12 grapes and for every stroke of midnight they eat one. Legend has it that for every sweet grape you eat you’ll have a good month and for every sour grape you have you can predict having a bad one. Portugal has also adopted this tradition and like to add a 13th grape at the end for good measure and a bit of extra luck. Cheers to a grape 2016!