About New Year's Traditions
Naples is famous for throwing their old furniture and other items out the
windows so they can buy new ones. (This reminds me of the last days of college
in the dorms, senior year, who thought it actually derived from the Napoletani?).
One of the traditions that my mother still insists on is taking new
coins (the current year obviously); penny, nickel, dime, quarter, half dollar
and dollar coin, facing up, putting them on the window sill BEFORE midnight
to bring good luck as we pass from the old year to the new.
New Year's Eve Food Traditions
Basically, they eat everything, they have fireworks (fuochi d'artificio)
and eat pizza, and a variety of other foods.
Torrone originally made with honey, almonds
and sesame (and today very often covered in chocolate) is said to be brought
to Sicily by the Arabs. The Arabs have a candy that is still made today,
that consists of honey and sesame seeds and is small, rectangular, similar
to a Jolly Rancher only its thinner and full of sesame seeds.
Panettone is also served at Easter, but
you can almost immediately recognize it in the square red boxes it comes
in. It is a bread with citron and candied fruits in something similar
to a drier pound cake.
Champagne &
Caviar you can use sparkling Italian
white wines like Asti Spumante, but, here is one thing the French actually
do better, so French champagne is a better