Good luck for a year? That's what you get in the South
if you eat a dish of black-eyed peas and hog jowls on
New Year's Day. The peas, or other food that swells as
it cooks, ensure prosperity; add collard greens to the
meal and you are guaranteed to gain greenbacks.

The Pennsylvania Dutch rely on a feast of sauerkraut to
keep well through the year, while in New York State,
people of German descent get off to the good start by
downing herring at midnight on New Year's Eve.

For Latin Americans, the lucky food is grapes, 12 at
midnight ensure a fruitful year.

Japanese-Americans agree with Southerners that there is
nothing luckier than black-eyed peas, unless maybe it's
lobster, which they count on for health and happiness.
But drop that crustacean or damage its feeler and you'd
better get another, it's important that the meal be as
symmetrical as possible on New Year's Day.
Reader's Digest
~Laverne