In Spain's New Year's Eve tradition, people eat 12 grapes, one at each midnight chime.
The custom is known as the twelve grapes of luck, or las doce uvas de la suerte. Each grape represents one month of the coming year, and successfully eating all 12 in time is associated with good fortune and prosperity.
The best-known public chimes come from the clock at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid. Television broadcasts carry the chimes across Spain, allowing households to follow the ritual even when they are not in the square. The grapes are often prepared in advance because eating 12 quickly can be surprisingly difficult.
Stories about the tradition's origin commonly connect its popularization to grape surpluses in the early twentieth century, especially around 1909. The exact origin is debated, so the surplus story is best treated as a widely repeated explanation rather than the only proven beginning.