In the New Year's Eve tradition of eating lentils, what do the lentils commonly symbolize?

In New Year's Eve and New Year's Day traditions, lentils commonly symbolize coins or wealth.

Their small, round, coin-like appearance gives lentils a link with prosperity. In parts of Italy and other countries, lentils are served around the turn of the year as a food associated with financial good fortune. The custom is often paired with cotechino or another pork dish, though recipes and timing vary by region and family.

The tradition is an example of sympathetic or symbolic food customs: an object's shape, color, or abundance is connected with a hoped-for outcome. Lentils are also inexpensive, nutritious, and able to feed many people, which makes them practical for a communal holiday meal as well as symbolically appropriate.

The exact meaning is not universal. In other cultures, different foods represent prosperity, longevity, or happiness. Lentils should therefore be described as a common prosperity symbol in particular New Year's traditions, not as a worldwide rule.