Why Italians Put on Red Underwear and Eat Lentils on New Year’s Eve

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At midnight on the 31st of December, Italy does not simply count down. It erupts. Fireworks crack open every city sky, champagne corks fly from apartment windows, and across the country, millions of Italians tuck into a plate of lentils and sausage — because to skip it, they say, is to invite a lean year.

These are not fringe beliefs. They are not charming relics kept alive for tourists. They are what millions of Italian families genuinely do, every single year, without debate.

The Dish That Promises Prosperity

The centrepiece of the Italian New Year’s table is cotechino e lenticchie — a rich pork sausage served over a mound of lentils. The lentils are the point. Round and flat, they look like tiny coins, and the more you eat, the richer you are supposed to grow in the year ahead.

The cotechino itself is a large, spiced pork sausage from Emilia-Romagna. It simmers low and slow for hours, developing a deep, silky richness. By midnight, it falls apart on the plate.

This dish is not optional in most Italian homes. It appears whether or not the family genuinely believes in the superstition. The lentils go on the table — and people eat them, just in case. The tradition of eating the same food as your parents did, and their parents before them, carries its own weight entirely apart from luck.

The same love of ritual fills the Christmas Eve table, where fish takes the place of meat for reasons rooted just as deeply in Italian tradition.

The Colour Every Italian Wears

On the 31st of December, Italy sells out of red underwear. Every market stall, department store, and corner shop stocks stacks of it: socks, vests, briefs, all in vivid scarlet. In the weeks before New Year’s Eve, it is as common a sight in shop windows as panettone.

Red is the colour of good fortune for the Italian New Year. Wearing it close to the body on the last night of the year is said to bring luck in love, health, and prosperity for the months ahead.

There is one rule: the underwear must be a gift. You cannot buy it for yourself. It must be given by someone who loves you. And on the morning of the 1st of January, tradition says you throw it away — it has done its work.

This runs across all of Italy, from Naples to Milan, from Palermo to Venice. Even people who roll their eyes at superstition tend to put on something red. You never quite know.

Making Enough Noise to Scare Away the Old Year

Italians believe in seeing out the old year loudly. Fireworks begin well before midnight and continue long after. In some southern cities — Naples especially — the noise borders on theatrical. The sky above the bay glows and shudders for hours.

The tradition of making noise on New Year’s Eve is ancient. Fire, sound, and light were believed to drive away evil spirits and bad fortune. The louder the better. The more chaotic, the more effective.

In Naples, older custom held that people would throw old crockery and furniture from their windows — physically clearing out the weight of the past year. Most cities no longer allow it, and it has largely faded. But the impulse — making space for something new by getting rid of something old — still runs through every Italian New Year celebration.

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Il Cenone — The Feast Before the Clock Strikes

New Year’s Eve dinner in Italy is called il Cenone — the big supper. It is a long, multi-course affair that stretches through the evening and runs right up to midnight. Nobody eats quickly. Nobody checks the time.

Seafood features heavily in the south. In the north, rich meat dishes and risotto dominate. In every region, the table is set with care, the wine is opened early, and there is no rushing. The meal itself is the occasion, not just the prelude to one.

Unlike Christmas dinner, which tends to be a close family affair, il Cenone often includes friends. Tables are loud and generous. The conversation overlaps. The lentils arrive last, just before midnight, when the year finally turns.

It is this same spirit of abundance and gathering that fills Italian village feasts throughout the year — the belief that food shared is never wasted.

A New Year’s Eve Only Italy Could Have Invented

What makes Capodanno — as Italians call New Year’s Eve — so distinctive is not any single tradition. It is the complete and unselfconscious belief in all of them at once. Red underwear and lentils and fireworks and noise and a long, slow feast. Each element carries its own logic: prosperity, luck, warmth, sound, belonging.

Even Italians who consider themselves thoroughly modern follow the same rituals their grandparents did. The lentils go on the plate. The red is worn. The toast is made at midnight with glasses raised, faces lit by the glow of fireworks above the piazza.

Italy has a gift for turning the calendar into a ceremony. New Year’s Eve is not just a party that happens to fall on the 31st of December. It is a set of specific beliefs about how a year should properly begin — acted out, every time, with full conviction.

Much of this conviction begins in the kitchen, where the nonna’s cooking sets the rhythm of family life through every season — New Year’s included.

If you ever have the chance to spend New Year’s Eve in Italy, take it without hesitation. Find a table, eat the lentils, wear the red, stay up for the noise. You may not believe in any of it. But at midnight, surrounded by the warmth and laughter of an Italian family doing exactly what their parents taught them, you almost certainly will.

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