The Superstitious Reason People Eat Pork On New Year's Day

Holidays come with all sorts of traditions and superstitions passed down from generation to generation. Some of them are for children's sake, like putting out milk and Christmas cookies for Santa Clause or going trick or treating on All Hallows' eve. Others have a bit more to do with religiosity, like the Greek Orthodox Easter tradition of dying eggs red and playing Tsougrisma to win luck for the year.

Sometimes, traditional branches over to superstition, and because the culinary arts are so heavily important to people worldwide, food was bound to pick up a few superstitious quirks along the way too. Bon Appétit says that some of the more popular superstitions include: spilling salt (which brings bad luck), never putting milk in your tea before the sugar (you'll never get married), and that garlic helps to ward off evil (but not bad breath). We have some of these for a good reason, and others are there to explain away some age-old traditions. Regardless of whether superstition actually benefits people's lives or not, some are hard to let go of, and around the New Year holiday, as the whole world turns over a new leaf, there are quite a lot of things people will do to ensure they keep moving forward.