On January 1, 2010 my wife and I spent the day in Nuremberg, Germany (our flight home departed on the 2nd).
We had spent the entirety of the holiday season in Bamberg, learning the hard way that when businesses in Bavaria say they’ll be closed at Christmas, it might mean five or six (or more) days of rest time in all, and not the American custom of one or two.
Consequently, sustenance in Nuremberg on New Year’s Day seemed less a consideration of variety or tradition, and more an instance of taking what we could get. But compared with the smaller Bamberg, far more commerce was in the air than we anticipated, along with a pervasive and atmospheric pea soup fog.
Eventually we opted to come inside warm up inside one of those big ol’ classic central city German eateries where you can smell the pork cooking a block away, with lots of venerable wooden furnishings and a steady flow of steins connecting rapidly depleting kegs with thirsty customers.
I might have died and proceeded directly to Valhalla even before viewing the mixed grill platter for two, which I handled all be myself because my wife honored vegetarianism at the time, and I’m a card-carrying trencherman.
The mixed grill was suitably delightful, featuring local signature sausages, ham, pork knuckle and duck, accompanied by a tureen of gravy, with potato dumpling, boiled potatoes, sauerkraut and sweet red cabbage, and accompanied by dark and unfiltered Keller Bier.
It was a memorable meal and a wonderful day to begin 2010, which proved to be an epochal year for all the wrong reasons, and this goes to show that while Hoppin’ John and collards on January 1 might cure a hangover, it guarantees little else.
At CNN, Amanda Kludt takes a global view: They eat what? New Year’s food traditions around the world.
As the new year arrives around the world, special desserts abound, as do long noodles (representing long life), field peas (representing coins), herring (representing abundance) and pigs (representing good luck).
In closing, I’ve richly enjoyed communicating with our readers about food and drink on a daily basis during 2023, and look forward to the coming year. Cheers!
