In its purest form, it’s made by simply shredding a head of cabbage, adding salt, bottling it, and then let it ferment away. No worries if your cultural heritage lies elsewhere! This is one delicious tradition everyone is free to embrace! What Is Sauerkraut? Consuming sauerkraut would therefore bring prosperity, or good fortune in the New Year.Īnd hence, the tradition began and lives on in families of Germanic and other eastern European descent. Harvested in late fall and soon after crafted into sauerkraut to provide a nutritious vegetable dish to be enjoyed in the winter months ahead, cabbage – the main ingredient in sauerkraut – is round in shape, similar to coins, and green, a sign of wealth.

Sauerkraut is similarly associated with prosperity and good fortune. By nature pigs are always looking for food, constantly “moving forward” in their search for food symbolizing moving forward in the New Year! To bring good luck (or “viel glück” in German), pork is the go-to food. So, why pork? Along with being a readily available as many families raised pigs. But where did this delicious tradition come from and how did it arise?Īccording to a number of food historians, the tradition can be traced back hundreds of years to Germany, and well before the first Germans arrived in the then “New World” in the early 1600s. On New Year’s Day, friends and families throughout Pennsylvania will gather to enjoy a traditional feast of pork and sauerkraut to ensure good luck and fortune in the year to come. Read on to learn more about the origins of this tasty tradition and its continuing popularity as THE New Year’s Day meal and discover some of the farmers’ markets and other locations where you can find delicious and authentic, made in-PA sauerkraut.

Pennsylvanians have long been at the forefront of those embracing this New Year’s feast, hoping to bring good luck and prosperity into the new year while paying tribute to the state’s Germanic and agricultural backgrounds. For many Americans, eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year’s is as traditional as apple pie and hot dogs on the 4th of July.

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