Lentils are a traditional New Year's Eve food in Italy and symbolize prosperity.
Their association with wealth comes partly from their round, coin-like shape. As lentils cook, they swell, making them a fitting symbol for growing prosperity in the year ahead. Italian New Year's meals commonly serve lentils with cotechino, a large cooked pork sausage, or with zampone, a stuffed pig's trotter. Pork can symbolize abundance because pigs were historically associated with plentiful food and forward movement.
The custom is especially connected with the dinner eaten on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day, and regional recipes differ across Italy. Lentils are not a guaranteed source of luck; their meaning is cultural and symbolic. Similar round-food traditions appear elsewhere, including black-eyed peas in the southern United States and grapes in Spain. The Italian practice is therefore part of a wider pattern in which New Year's foods represent money, abundance, or good fortune.