Also called cotechino e lenticchie, lenticchie di Capodanno
Italians eat lentils, shaped like little coins, near or after midnight on New Year's Eve so the coming year brings money. The more you eat, the richer the year.
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Take care: Cook lentils fully; raw or undercooked legumes upset the stomach. Pick out small stones before cooking.
A common story says Romans gave a small leather purse (scarsella) of lentils at the turn of the year hoping they would turn into coins. It is repeated in many Italian sources but we could not trace it to an ancient author, so treat it as tradition rather than proven history.
Uses: small pouch, dry lentils
The rich pork sausage from Modena, or its cousin zampone in a pig's trotter, is the standard partner of New Year lentils. Pork's richness stands for abundance, and the pairing spread from a regional dish to a national custom.
Uses: cotechino, lentils
A parallel custom from a very different place: in the American South, black-eyed peas with rice are eaten on New Year's Day for luck, often with collard greens for paper money and cornbread for gold.
Uses: black-eyed peas, rice, collard greens
Lentils are one of the oldest farmed crops of the Mediterranean, and their small round flat shape has long suggested coins. They also swell as they cook, which Italian cooks link to money growing. Eating lentils on Capodanno, New Year's Eve, is practiced across Italy and is especially strong in the center and north, where they are served with cotechino or zampone.
Popular writing often traces the custom to Rome, describing gifts of lentils in a small purse at the new year. That story is repeated widely but rests on no ancient source we could confirm, and we flag it as such. What is certain is that the dish is a living family ritual, eaten close to midnight with the wish that the year bring as many coins as there are lentils on the plate.
A three-legged golden toad sitting on coins with a coin in its mouth, placed in the home or shop to draw in money and keep it from leaving. It belongs to Chinese folk belief and feng shui.
When you first see the new moon, turn over the coins in your pocket so money will not run short until the next moon. A widespread British and Irish superstition.
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