My New Year's foods have varied, but always include black-eyed peas because that is what my parents always said was to be eaten on January 1to bring luck and prosperity for the coming year. It is a US Southern custom and tradition. Lore says it began at the end of the US Civil War when the Northern Union soldiers raided the Southern Confederate food supplies, and took everything EXCEPT the black-eyed peas. Then the black-eyed pea took on the symbol of luck for Southerners, and it was our tradition as I grew up, and I still eat them almost every New Years Day.