December 31, 2008
A New Year’s Eve all’italiana

Italians are expected to spend 350 million euro to celebrate the arrival of 2009, a 5% increase from last year, mostly spent on bollicine tricolore—a return to tradition which has taken the country by storm as Italian proudly celebrate the popular success of their sparklers despite the global economic crisis. An expected 9 out of 10 Italians will also choose to celebrate with the traditional New Year’s Eve Italian dinner menu, cenone di capodanno, which calls for lenticchie (lentils), grapes, cotechino and zampone, consuming an estimated 95% of the national production over the course of two days (Coldiretti).

Lentils and grapes are believed to bring in prosperity for the coming year, a superstitious ritual that goes back to when money was mostly dealt in coins. The more historical explanation comes from the medieval peasant tradition to celebrate the holiday with some of the food that was saved for the cold winter months, before the return of spring when work on the fields would be resumed. The distinctive Lenticchia di Castelluccio di Norcia IGP from Umbria is certainly a great choice, but Italians have many local varietals to count on, such as those from S. Stefano in Abruzzo, Valle Agricola in Campania, Onano-Rascino and Ventotene from Lazio, Villalba and Ustica from Sicilia and Molisane from Molise.

The Cotechino di Modena and Zambone di Modena IGPs are specialties from Emilia-Romagna that date back to 1511, the year when the troops of Pope Julius II laid siege to the town of Mirandola, at the time a faithful ally to the French. As the enemy approached, the townspeople prepared for an eminent siege they began to save provisions and, as a way to not waste their pork meat, they found a way to mix it with spices and encase it in pigskin, creating the specialty called cotechino, and later in the hog’s foreleg, or zampa, hence the given name zampone.