MSN posted a link to an article about New Year's foods. The custom from Spain made me wonder whether people--especially imbibing party goers--choked trying to get their bit of good luck for the year:

"Fruit is also important in Spain. You are promised good luck in the new year if, at midnight, you eat one grape with each stroke of the clock."

...unless that clock is a very slow one.

Anyway, here's the link to the article:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/852089.asp?vts=122720022152

Hmmmmmm! I had a friend of German descent who insisted on eating pickled herring at the stroke of midnight for good luck. I figured after eating pickled herring nothing would seem too bad!
On a related subject, we New Englanders have a custom - well, the old New Englanders anyway - of burning a Bayberry candle on New Year's Day.
"A bayberry candle, burned to the socket brings health to the home and wealth to the pocket."

The smart old-timers get a slim, not-too-tall candle that will not burn too long and can be allowed to "gut" ... blowing out the candle brings bad luck.
If all else fails, place the candle and holder in the kitchen sink with a little water around it ... then if it tips over, no harm done.
Happy New Year!

We had the same bayberry candle tradition in my family. I believe my mother brought it into the family. She was a German farm girl from Wisconsin.

In much of the Southern US, people eat Hoppin' John, a mixture of black-eyed peas and rice. I'm sure WW or milum or Jackie can elaborate further.

In Brazil, similarly, people eat lentils and rice.

Any other cultures eat beans on New Year's Day?

(... and could a grape per second at the strokes be better assimilated in the form of a sip of champagne? )

Actually, just black-eyed peas ; and whoever finds the dime hidden in the mess gets extra good luck. (That's mess of peas, as in mess of beans, not a dining disaster.)

Much better to have champagne bubbles tickling your nose than a grape plugging a bronchus.

New Year's Food? Having the distinction of being the first ayleur to see each new day, and each new year, I can assure you that here in Zild, there ain't no such thing as traditional New Year's food I suspect Pfranz will back me on this, that by the time the rest of you are just celebrating your countdowns into the New Year, most K1W1s will be tentatively beginning their recuperation from the traditional New Year's consumption, of anything but food.

I agree with them Southern Belles Wordwind and Jaquie, Black-eyed Peas is what works the trick. ITVTRTC is the mnemonic...

Introduction of Theme : Black-eyed Peas.
Variation of the Theme: Black-eyed Peas and Fatback.
Return to Theme and Conclusion: Black-eyed Peas and Fatback and Clabber Milk.

It was the luck of the Black-eyed Pea that the quarterback (Jerry McCormick) of the Phillips High School Red Raiders Football Team called upon when he sing-sang our start-count to begin plays...

"Cornbread and Peas,
knock 'em to their knees.
Hut one, hut two, hut three,..."

I agree with them Southern Belles Wordwind and Jaquie, Black-eyed Peas is what works the trick.

... oh.

Damn machine! Cut me off!

...and of course you all mustn't forget the lovely Belle AnnaStrophic who could eat a bowl of Hoppin' John with champagne and cornbread at the Beau Arts Ball with the best of 'em before she was enslaved by her own passions and followed her heart to the bleak cold snows that are found up north.

Damn machine! Cut me off!
Neat extraction there, milum!

followed her heart to the bleak cold snows that are found up north.

And, for the first time in her memory, truly appreciated the coming of Spring.

Bless your heart:

http://www.ivillage.com/food/recipefinder/recipe/0,13485,391641,00.html

Bless your heart

Aw, shucks. An' I thought it was gonna be a squirrel brain recipe.

a traitor!

A Hem. Squirrel and flying squirrel is two very different thangs, thank you very much, young lady.

They may be two different thangs, but the'll both knaw your house down around your haid if'n you let 'em.

I bin wurkin on my accent. Hit's gettin purty good, doncha tink?

Dear Faldage: in Jared Diamonds "Guns, Germsn and Steel" he got me all excited by statement
that in New England flying squirrels in attics could transmit typhus to occupants below. I spent
quite a few hours searching before I found a CDC site that said there had been one case in
thirty years. I still wonder how that one flying squirrel got the typhus organisms.

doncha tink?

Ah õnt thank sew.

A Hem...Ah õnt thank sew.
It seems that you have a new career, Faldage. If sew, can you give us some new threads? If you don't, can we needle you about it? How is your new career going?

Dr Bill,

Thank you for that. We get a lot of people telling us it's dangerous to have the little critters around, but nobody can say exactly why. We live in the woods so we are going to get visited. At least these guys don't get underfoot.

your new career

Why am I always the last to know? The lovely ASp didn't even tell me.