If you ask Italians what they eat on New Year’s Eve, they will most certainly answer: lentils with meat. Eating lentils on New Year’s Eve is an Italian tradition that dates back to the time of the Roman Empire. Lentils symbolise money entering into someone’s home: they resemble small coins as they are round and flat. According to the tradition, to gain favour with the new year, Romans would gift their friends with a leather bag, called scarsella, full of lentils, that based on the myth, would become coins! Lentils were considered very precious indeed especially by the poor because they were highly nutritious and constituted a replacement for the meat that they couldn’t afford.

According to the Italian tradition, lentils on New Year’s Eve feast (cenone di capodanno) are accompanied by zampone (stuffed pigs foot) or/and cotechino (a sort of boiled sausage made of meat and pork rind). They both have the same filling: roughly minced lean and fat pork meat, and finely minced rind. Everything is seasoned with pepper, nutmeg, cloves and in some cases with cinnamon or even wine. If the filling is the same, the main difference between cotechino and zampone is the casing: the front pigs foot for the zampone and the gut, natural or artificial, for the cotechino. For those who cannot get hold of zampone or cotechino, boiled or steamed sausages can be an option.

Being 31 December, I’m preparing some lentils too but as I don’t have the zampone or cotechino, I’ve opted for some thick sausages, which I’ve boiled, cut in chunks and then added to my green lentil soup. But I’ve also being inspired to make lentils in the shape of a large sausage. I mashed the previously cooked lentils together with an egg. I then added some breadcrumbs, salt and pepper, some rosemary and fennel finely chopped, chopped sun dried tomato, nutmeg, and mixed everything together with a spoon. I then transferred the mixture onto baking paper and shaped it into a large sausage, wrapped into the baking paper with the ends twisted to make a cracker. I put it in the oven for 30 minutes at 180° degrees.

Happy New Year!

Nutritional benefits
Among the vegetables, lentils are the richest in proteins and have a high content of carbs. They are a great source of energy and are very low in fats. They also contain phosphorus, iron, B vitamins and fibre.

Sources

https://www.repubblica.it/sapori/2020/12/30/news/lenticchie_cotechino_capodanno-280492576/

https://www.vanityfair.it/vanityfood/mangiar-bene/2018/12/29/perche-mangiamo-cotechino-e-lenticchie-capodanno-tutti-segreti-del-piatto-rito

https://blog.giallozafferano.it/martolinaincucina/polpettone-di-lenticchie/