In Spain’s New Year’s Eve midnight tradition, people eat 12 grapes with the clock’s 12 chimes.
The custom is called the twelve grapes, or las doce uvas de la suerte, meaning “the twelve grapes of luck.” Participants try to eat one grape for each chime at midnight on December 31. Successfully completing the sequence is popularly associated with good fortune in the 12 months ahead.
The tradition became strongly established in Spain in the early twentieth century. A widely repeated account links its spread to a large grape surplus in 1909, when growers promoted grapes as a festive New Year food, although the custom had already existed in some form before then.
The best-known public setting is Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, where crowds follow the clock and national television broadcasts the chimes. The grapes are sometimes confused with the 12 round fruits displayed in Philippine celebrations; Spain’s custom specifically calls for eating grapes in time with the chimes.