Why Do We Eat Corned Beef & Cabbage On New Years?

This whole corned beef and cabbage thing is totally new to me. I feel like moving to Indiana for college I learned about a lot of food traditions we didn’t have in Michigan (or at least my Dutch family didn’t do). Noodles for Thanksgiving and corned beef and cabbage for New Year’s Day. (Apparently it’s also a St. Patrick’s Day thing.) No one in my house could answer WHY we had to eat it when I asked so I decided that it was time to learn.

 

The Indy Star had a great article on many foods that are lucky to eat on New Year’s Eve or Day. Cows and pigs don’t scratch in the dirt for their food the way chickens do so eating chicken on the first day of the year is supposedly setting you up to scratch in the dirt to survive the whole year.  Cabbage is green like paper money so… that means wealth I guess?  So basically we eat a giant plate of gooey sodium to not be poor lol.   You’re welcome.

 

-Nikki