Holidays

Speaking of categorization of 14 k recipes, I remember a project that was on the web some 10 yrs ago.. classification of galaxies into spiral (right handed/left handed) , circular & 'fuzzy', the consensus was that scanning software was no match for actual human eyes & so they threw open the images from the hubble space telescope to the general public to be classified.. I'm sure some of us will be glad to help you out with categorizations in the future..if you provide a set of guidelines.

There you go.. The New Year theme theme just got a fabulous infusion of Ideas from world traditions! Interesting point about colors.. For the Tamil New year, tradition requires that the food prepared has components (not necessarily all in one dish of course) that encompass all 4 tastes.. sweet, salty, sour & bitter - to remind one that life offers all these 4 flavors and its essential to embrace them all

Reveillon as we call New Year's in Brazil comes with lots of traditions mostly based on superstitions and religious beliefs.To prosper,nothing like a bowl of lentils!And do not serve birds,or your life plans wil be held back.So we serve pork or 'bacalhau',a kind of salt-dried cod fish from Portugal.Most people go to the beach,where they pay respects and offer gifts like flowers and perfume to 'Iemanjá',the sea goddess to those like me who are spiritualists and follow 'Umbanda",an african religion based on the elements in nature tranlated into divinities,the 'Orixás'.Also jumping 7 waves at midnight on your right foot is believed to bring good luck,don't know if it really works but it's lots of fun.Also at midnight-and back to the food-you must have a glass of champagne with three green grapes in it...and you get a wish per grape!Like luvcookbooks said,collor is important,but over here is the collor of your clothes and not the of food that matters:white is for peace,yellow for gold(wealth),green for hope,red for passion,pink for love,and blue for good health.No black--black is for funerals!

Just to clarify, I meant one broad category simply called Celebrations - which could sort of be a catch all for recipes that don't exclusively conform to one commonly agreed upon occasion...e.g., it could be a birthday cake or a wedding shower cake, or a Super Bowl dip or a house warming dip, or....different strokes, so to speak. A way of denoting celebration, but simplifying instead of adding (what could be) endless holiday/event categories.

Maybe rather than including Birthday, or New Yr, in the Holiday category, there could be another broader category simply called Celebrations - to cover any recipe the poster typically reserves for a special occasion, per family - or their own - tradition. Birthdays, ethnic celebrations, graduations, anniversaries, Super Bowl Parties, etc. Understanding it's a major project for Food52 to re-assign a new category to 14K+ recipes, could this simply be self-tagged moving forward? (Everything begins somewhere.) Perhaps this would help search for a special 'party' dish, w/o having to vet slippery - often idiosyncratic - distinctions (one man's birthday cake is another man's anniversary cake, is another...) The poster could still be more specific in their intro, of course: 'this is our favorite Boxing Day muffin' (huh?)....or, 'I make this elaborate pasta dish every year for my son's birthday' and so on.) Just a thought.

For birthdays, isn't cake traditional? And children's bday parties are a huge challenge that I struggled with when my children were small.... adult food, kid food, how much, what, games, decor... gift parameters...
interesting to see adult b day ideas as well. My idea of heaven is going out to a nice restaurant for my birthday celebration, invented it myself so I wouldn't be the cook.

Don't mean to sound like the proverbial devils advocate, but, does 'new year' have to be restricted to Jan 1 ? Traditions from different religions welcome a 'new year' like Rosh Hoshanah (Judaism), Navroze (Persian new year), Baisakhi, Vishu (Hindu/Indian) that does not fall on Jan 1st. but the calendar New year would be a great excuse to share recipes from all these different world traditions...

I disagree with Amanda. New Year's Day Foods is a good idea for a category. It would be fun to see the variety of things that people of different backgrounds serve on that day. I have found that some people like to serve dishes that remind them of their families' roots. Or dishes that evoke a special memory or tradition. I usually host a party on New Year's Day and serve ham, cabbage for money in the coming year, black eye for good luck, and cornbread - that's how my mom, from Alabama, did it. Sometimes it's been gumbo, oysters on the half shell, crab dip and shrimp cheesecake, too.

The traditions are out there. My Nevada cousins always serve curried chicken on that day. And when I lived in NYC, friends always cooked Chinese food.

Maybe you could limit the category to foods that are family traditions on New Years's Day. Might be fun!

At our Thanksgiving dinner tonight we had a conversation about holidays in the US and where they came from. When we noticed ourselves veering off into an historical argument based on who knew what when and who was really the first group of Europeans to set foot in the Americas someone had the foresight to shift the conversation by asking "which months have no holidays?" in the US.

Could only come up with August - August recipes?

We could but it feels a little open-ended, since there are very few "traditional" New Year's Day foods. (Similarly, we tried to add Birthday Parties as a category and faced the same issue.) Do you have thoughts about what kinds of foods could qualify, or how to go about it? Let us know.