January
2004 
December 31, New Year's Eve
In most western countries, this celebratory evening is a time for boisterous parties, either in homes or in public places, to welcome in the new year.
Russians also celebrate with festive parties with many salads, a main dish of turkey or some other poultry, and plenty of pastries and cakes. One cake is often frosted to look like a clock with its hands approaching midnight.
FOOD AND DRINK
In northern Spain, baby eels, fried crisp, are a special New Year's Eve treat. Roast pork is also popular. A good-luck custom is to eat 12 grapes one at a time in the 12 seconds before midnight. If you eat them all before the clock strikes in the new year, you will have good fortune for the whole year. This custom is popular in Mexico, too.
Until fairly recently, Christmas was scarcely celebrated in Scotland, while in contrast, New Year's Eve, called Hogmanay, has long been a rambunctious and festive occasion with parties and festivities. The most famous is "first footing." First footers are groups of men who go around calling on friends. Theirs will be the first foot over the door sill and so they must be welcomed with tots of whisky and slices of either Black Bun, a fruitcake baked inside a pastry crust, or mincemeat pie. Two other foods always present at Hogmanay are shortbread and haggis, a large round sausage made from ground lamb and oatmeal and always served with tatties and neeps—potatoes and mashed rutabaga.
In Japan, New Year's Eve is called Oomisoka, which literally means "big thirtieth day." People eat soba - long buckwheat noodles - aiming to begin eating a mouthful just before midnight so they can suck in the final bit as the year changes. The length of the noodle symbolizes longevity.
Russians celebrate the New Year with big parties with plenty of vodka. Often they will have a cake decorated like a clock with its hands approaching midnight.
January 1, New Year’s Day
The Gregorian calendar’s New Year’s Day is now celebrated around the world as the first day of the year, although many countries use this only for the business year and celebrate a traditional New Year’s Day based on the lunar or solar calendar.
FOOD AND DRINK
Albanian
Albanians bake lakror, a filo-based pie that can be stuffed with cheese, spinach, mushrooms, leeks, or other vegetables. A coin is put under the bottom layer of pastry. In the coming year, luck will follow the person who gets the piece with the coin.
Georgian
In the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, honey-coated nuts and honey-based candies and cookies are eaten as a sign of the sweetness of the year to come.
German
It's traditional to eat soup with slices of sausage to symbolize coins.
Greek and Bulgarian
A bread with a coin in it for New Year's Day, as well as a nut-studded cake called Vasilopeta, is made to honor St. Vasil, whose feast day falls on January 1. Another custom is to break a pomegranate on the doorstep. If it is full of seeds, the year will be prosperous and happy.
Japanese
Mochi, a sort of rice-based pancake that puffs up when it is cooked, is typical new year food. Other popular Japanese treats are fish loaf, oranges, chrysanthemum leaves, carp, and chestnuts.Scottish and northern EnglishThe first visitors of New Year's Day bring coal, bread, and salt to symbolize warmth, food, and health.
January 6, Christmas. Armenian Apostolic Church
Armenians celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar on this day.
FOOD AND DRINK
Armenians make a pudding of chickpeas, wheat berries, nuts, dried fruit, and pomegranate seeds for Christmas. The ingredients, which vary depending on the fruits and nuts available, are said to recall the supplies remaining when Noah sighted dry land, thought to be in what is now Armenia. Realizing he would no longer have to stay afloat, Noah used up his supplies to make a celebratory pudding. Similar dishes are also made in Muslim communities at festival times such as Muharram.
January 6, Epiphany. Christian
Also called Three King's Day (Tres Rejes in Spanish, Trois Rois in French), Little Christmas, Elders' Christmas, and Twelfth Night.
This Christian holiday commemorates the visit of the three kings to the infant Jesus. In many Catholic countries this is the time for Christmas fun, Christmas itself being lower key and more religious. Since the Three Kings brought gifts, people exchange presents and children often get large piles of toys. See the recipe for New Orleans King Cake.
FOOD AND DRINK
Argentinean, Guatemalan, and other South American
Generally, beef is served in casserole form. In Hispanic countries, roast sucking pig is a favorite luxuary at Epiphany, in Mexico, a legof pork or a whole sucking pig (generally weighing between 12 and 15 pounds) is often the choice for the celebratory dinner. Many Hispanic people eat a special cake for the new year, usually spiced, in which they bury coins or charms. The lucky person who gets the gift is guaranteed a prosperous year. Roscon de reyes, a sweet yeast-raised cake with candied peels and fruits, is a traditional Spanish favorite. Mexicans make a variation on this—rosca de reyes, a doughnut-shaped cake served in slices with hot chocolate. Like many similar cakes, it has a small baby Jesus in it. Whoever gets the baby is lucky, but must also invite those present to a February party at which tamales are served. The gift inside is called a muñeca and whoever gets it is termed El Niño Bonito — "the beautiful child."
Filipino
(In the Philippines, Epiphany is sometimes called Elder's Christmas in honor of the wisdom of the Three Kings.) The meal centers on roast young pig with rice and vegetables, followed by an array of cookies and baked goods and fruit. Another festive dish is a whole boneless chicken stuffed with seasoned ground pork and hard-boiled eggs. Filipinos have the hospitable late-afternoon custom called merienda at which many sorts of small dishes and snacks are served to family and guests. At Epiphany, when people pay a lot of visits, this custom is especially important. The selection of items offered ranges from sweet items such as little cakes and bucayo, a sweet coconut dessert, to savory items such as tapa, a homemade beef jerky made from dried, paper-thin slices of beef flavored with garlic and ginger, fritters of shrimp with sweet potatoes, and lumpia, which are egg rolls filled with pork, chilies, and vegetables. There may also be large pots of stew or seasoned seafood, so these "snacks" often do duty for supper as well.
French and French-speaking Caribbean
There are many sorts of king cakes, called gateaux des rois or galette des rois, sometimes made in the shape of a crown and containing a dried bean or a small china baby Jesus. The one who gets the bean is the king or queen of the feast.
Puerto Rican, Jamaican, Guyanan, & other Caribbean & Central American
It's customary to have drinks and snacks—both local specialties as well as common chips and dips from the market—to entertain guests. Meat—especially pork and beef—and cheese, cookies, fruit, dried fruits, and nuts are all typical holiday foods.
January 7, Christmas. Coptic Orthodox Christian, Eastern Orthodox Christian
In the Russian Orthodox calendar, January 7 is Christmas Day. Having plenty of food, including a large beef or pork roast or turkey, is traditional in Russia, but since Easter is the most important Orthodox holiday, there are few special Christmas dishes besides kasha (buckwheat), which is eaten on all holidays; a compote of dried fruits; and a rice pudding made with milk, almonds, and raisins. In countries that observe Eastern Orthodox Christmas, New Year's Day is celebrated on January 14.
During the Soviet era, religious holidays per se were frowned upon. Instead there was a prolonged winter festival that continued from late December through January 1, and on into the Eastern Orthodox Christmas. This tradition remains.
FOOD AND DRINK
Russians celebrate with parties where vodka flows freely and the table is set with many salads and meat dishes. Whole roast birds, especially turkey or chicken, are common, as is koluptse, cabbage stuffed with a flavored meat mixture. Two salads that appear at every Russian festival are a meat salad and a herring salad. The meat salad, called Salad Olivier after the nineteenth-century chef who invented it, is made of canned peas, cubed boiled carrots, cubed boiled potatoes, pickles, onions, and cubes of lean ham or a sausage such as kielbasa. The herring salad, called "fish under a fur wrap," consists of salted herring covered with layers of potatoes, carrots, boiled eggs, and onions. The two final layers are boiled beets and mayonnaise. The salad is decorated and refrigerated so that the beet juice colors the mayonnaise.
January 21, New Year (Losar). Tibetan
The last two days of the old year, called Gutor, are spent in preparation for the new year. On the first day, every household hangs colorful new prayer flags, while houses are whitewashed and thoroughly cleaned, especially the kitchen. A special dumpling soup called guthuk, or “ninth soup,” is made from nine different ingredients—sweet potato, rice, radishes, cheese, meat, wheat, peas, green peppers, and noodles. On the second day of Gutor, Tibetans go to monasteries to make offerings. They decorate family altars with candies, fruits, and khabsa, homemade deep-fried dough twists. On New Year’s Eve, the family eats the “ninth soup”—everyone must eat nine bowls. The soup is served with dumplings containing various surprises hidden inside, such as salt, chilies, wool, and coal, each of which has a special meaning and gives one’s fortune for the new year. For example, salt signifies a virtuous year ahead, while chilies indicate that an angry, argumentative year is in store. Then the ceremony of Lu Yugpa is held to banish evil spirits from the old year. At dawn on New Year’s Day, Tibetans make offerings at the family shrine. Family members each receive a pinch of freshly made butter placed on their forehead, a plate of khabsa twists, and a cup of Tibetan butter tea thick enough to float a coin. They visit monasteries to pay homage to the Buddha and to make offerings of food and gifts to the monks and nuns, who burn fragrant juniper and cedar branches as incense offerings to the heavens. Then people celebrate with friends and family by feasting on rich holiday foods, drinking chang, homemade barley beer, and singing and dancing around huge bonfires at night. New Year’s is the major celebration of the Tibetan calendar and revelries may continue for up to two weeks. Some devotees journey to the Johkang Temple in Lhasa to donate yak butter to keep the temple lamps burning. At Barkor Plaza, sculptures of Buddhist deities made by the monks out of yak butter and roasted barley flour are on display, prior to their unveiling at the Butter Sculpture Festival, held on the day of the first full moon of the lunar year. (See entry for Butter Sculpture Festival.) (m)
January 22, New Year. Chinese
The Chinese New Year is based on the lunar calendar. This is year 4702, dating from the mythical beginning of the Chinese people, and is the Year of the Monkey. All Chinese people mark their birthdays on this day too, counting themselves one year older. Solemn observances include praying at the temple and performing rituals in honor of ancestors. Secular festivities are marked by wearing new clothes, watching fireworks, and feasting with family and friends.
FOOD AND DRINK
The most important feast is on New Year's Eve. Cooking for it begins several days in advance because the feast includes a multitude of dishes. Typical things to buy include hams, dried ducks, and other meats because meat, rather than vegetables, is the focus of this luxury meal. Advance preparations are necessary because using knives or cleavers during the first days of the new year might "cut off" the family's luck, so food must be cut up before the holiday. The meal generally begins with snacks such as honeyed pork, lotus seeds, and other treats offered in a tray fitted with small dishes. This symbolizes the unity of many people in one family. The final dish is a soup, often prepared by an older relative. Again the many ingredients in one dish symbolize the family. Bright orange-colored fruits, such as kumquats and tangerines with the green leaves still attached, are arranged in dishes on the table and in front of the household gods. Their golden color symbolizes joy. Celebrations continue for three days, with festive meals centered on meat dishes every day.
The precise dishes chosen vary from region to region, but foods of symbolic significance are always included.
Northern Chinese
People from northern China make large numbers of jiao zi for the New Year's celebration. These are dumplings filled with chopped pork, cabbage, ginger, and scallions, which are served throughout the holiday season. (Further south similar dumplings are shaped as gold ingots called huan bao to symbolize wealth and good fortune.) The dumplings are served as a side dish with dipping sauces of vinegar and sesame oil or soy sauce, and small dishes of pickles, roasted peanuts, and hard-boiled eggs with crackled shells cooked for several hours in tea. When the eggs are served, shelled and cold, they are beautifully marbled with the tea. For the New Year's meal, northerners frequently cook one very large dish of fried pork rather than the many smaller dishes found further south. Another special dish northerners choose for this season is a Mongolian barbecue. This is a vessel of broth kept heated by a small charcoal or alcohol burner. Guests can pick up thin slices of beef, veal, pork, or mushrooms and dip them first in the boiling liquid, then in soy sauce.Although beef dishes are sometimes served in northern China, the favorite meat at New Year is pork. One celebratory way of eating it is to mix it with ginger, scallions, chopped bamboo shoots, and seasonings and form it into large meatballs, each weighing 3–4 ounces, which are then steamed between layers of Napa cabbage. These whoppers of the meatball world are called lion's head meatballs.
Taiwanese and southern Chinese
Long, thin foods such as noodles are eaten to symbolize long life. To cut them would shorten life, so they are twirled around chopsticks. Seafood, served as a whole fish and often cooked with ginger and scallions, is popular because the Chinese word for fish can also mean "early" and "coming son," predicting the birth of a boy. Other popular foods also derive from puns: candied kumquats, because part of their Chinese ideogram means "gold"; lotus seeds, because the name also means "many children"; dried oyster, which literally means "something good is about to happen."
The dinner dishes are many and are often served banquet style — one after the other — rather than home style — all at once. Expensive items such as shark's fin soup, bird's nest soup, and pickled jellyfish are served as a sign of status. Eight Precious Rice is a similar status dish. It is made from sweet glutinous rice studded with almonds, lotus seeds, dates, bean paste, and other sweet things. There are also New Year puddings made from sweetened rice flour and millet or from water chestnut paste. Slices of these are fried and served with jasmine tea. Rice is not offered with the meal, but is served at the end. In this polite tradition, the host implies that the food is poor; therefore the guests need to fill up with rice. However, to accept it would be an insult, indicating there had not been enough good things to eat. Thus, the rice is always declined.
Whole fish with mushroom and ginger sauce is also a popular dish.
Pork, shrimp and spinach with noodles is also a popular dish.
January 22, New Year (Sol). Korean
In the Korean calendar, this is the beginning of the year 4337 of the era of Tan'gun, the progenitor of the Korean people. Like the Chinese, Koreans set off firecrackers during New Year's celebrations to scare away evil spirits. Also like the Chinese, Koreans celebrate the New Year for three days. Family visits are important, especially visits to grandparents. Roasted chestnuts are often given to children as a treat.
FOOD AND DRINK
Koreans do not have ritual feasts at Sol; rather, each family or community celebrates in its own way. The most popular festival dish is bulgogi, which is strips of lean beef marinated in soy sauce with ginger, garlic, and scallions. Often people cook their own meat on tabletop hotplates, but the dish can also be sautéed on an ordinary kitchen stove. Kimchi, the national dish, is also served, as it is at every meal. This pickle is made from Napa cabbage seasoned with onions, garlic, ginger, and chilies. Small dishes, called collectively na mool, are also served with bulgogi. They include variations on kimchi made with cucumber, beets, vinegar, soy sauce, and garlic, shredded daikon radish mixed with chilies and rice wine vinegar, and spinach or Swiss chard, boiled and tossed with chilies, scallions, sesame oil, and pine nuts or sesame seeds.
January 22, New Year (Tet Nguyen Dan). Vietnamese
Like the Chinese, the Vietnamese welcome New Year by wearing new clothes, settling old accounts, watching fireworks and parades, and feasting. Villages often celebrate with some special event, such as a puppet show or a display of dancing or martial arts.
FOOD AND DRINK
The most famous Tet dish is called seven styles of beef. The beef is cut, sliced, cubed, made into meatballs, barbecued, and so on; then all the different preparations are arranged on a large platter and served with salads, rice, noodles, and French-style bread rolls. Goi are also often served at Tet. These are rice wrappers presented on a big plate and surrounded by vegetables, herbs, and bean sprouts. Guests take a wrapper and add a lettuce leaf and whichever of the other items they like, roll it up, and dip it into a sauce made from peanuts and hoisin sauce.
January 25, Robert Burns: Scottish
FOOD AND DRINK
Scottish families usually buy haggis from a butcher
and concentrate their efforts on homemade foods like
bashed neeps to accompany the haggis and shortbread
for eating after dinner.
January 26, Australia Day
FOOD AND DRINK
Among the national foods of Australia are lamb and kangaroo, which tastes a little like beef. Australians also like meat pies, often with tomato sauce. The favorite dessert in both Australia and New Zealand is Pavlova Cake, created to honor ballerina Anna Pavlova when she toured Australia and New Zealand. Called simply “pav” for short, it is a cream- and fruit-filled meringue looking like a ballerina’s tutu. Both Australia and New Zealand claim to have invented Pavlova, with New Zealanders having the stronger case because they can trace the recipe back to 1926, the year of Pavlova’s visit. Nonetheless, Australians still make it on birthdays and other special occasions. They also open bottles of wine. Australian wines, especially those made from Shiraz, Chardonnay, and Semillon grapes, are among the best in the world.