6 Global Good-Luck Meals to Eat on New Year's Day

Cultures all over the world eat specific foods on New Year's Day for good luck, and NPR collected some of the tastiest. Here are 10 global good-luck foods to help ring in 2012 right.

Denmark

Danes eat stewed kale, boiled cod and cured saddle of pork. There's also kransekage, a layered horn-shaped dessert made of marzipan rings and topped with chocolate, icing and almonds.

Italy

Italians eat lentils just after midnight on New Year's Eve, often with cotechino sausage and zampone, which is a pig trotter filled with sausage.

Japan

The Japanese eat ozoni for good luck; this soup has a bonito and kelp base and is flavored with lime. Soba noodles and grilled rice cakes also end the year right. On New Year's Day, there's osechi, a colorful meal similar to the one above that's packed with foods in good-luck hues like yellow, red and white.

Philippines

Filipinos eat circular foods, especially fruits like melons, grapes and oranges. Roasted pig, noodles and rice cakes topped in caramel are also on the New Year's menu.

Spain

Spaniards eat 12 grapes in the first 12 seconds of the New Year, starting promptly at midnight in time with a clock's chime.

United States

Southerners cook greens, cornbread, black-eyed peas, rice and pork in a delicious dish called Hoppin' John.