Which New Year's Eve tradition in Italy involves eating lentils to symbolize prosperity?

The Italian New Year's Eve tradition symbolizing prosperity is eating lentils.

Lentils are served at New Year's celebrations in Italy because their small, round shape is traditionally compared with coins. Eating them is therefore associated with hopes for wealth and financial good fortune in the coming year. They are often served shortly after midnight or as part of the New Year's Eve meal.

A classic pairing is lentils with cotechino, a heavily seasoned Italian pork sausage, or with zampone, a stuffed pig's trotter. Pork has its own prosperity symbolism in several Italian traditions because pigs represent abundance and their forward-moving snouts suggest progress.

Regional customs vary, so not every Italian household follows exactly the same menu or timing. The lentils are the key symbolic food, not a universal requirement to eat a particular number of them. The custom is also distinct from Spain's twelve grapes, whose meaning is tied to the twelve months and the midnight clock chimes.