January 2007 
January 1, Monday, New Year's Day : International.
The Gregorian calendar’s New Year’s Day is now celebrated around the world as the first day of the year, although many countries use this only for the business year and celebrate a traditional New Year’s Day based on the lunar or solar calendar.
FOOD AND DRINK
Albanian
Albanians bake lakror, a filo-based pie that can be stuffed with cheese, spinach, mushrooms, leeks, or other vegetables. A coin is put under the bottom layer of pastry. In the coming year, luck will follow the person who gets the piece with the coin.
Georgian
In the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, honey-coated nuts and honey-based candies and cookies are eaten as a sign of the sweetness of the year to come.
German
It's traditional to eat soup with slices of sausage to symbolize coins.
Greek and Bulgarian
A bread with a coin in it for New Year's Day, as well as a nut-studded cake called Vasilopeta, is made to honor St. Vasil, whose feast day falls on January 1. Another custom is to break a pomegranate on the doorstep. If it is full of seeds, the year will be prosperous and happy.
Japanese
Mochi, a sort of rice-based pancake that puffs up when it is cooked, is typical new year food. Other popular Japanese treats are fish loaf, oranges, chrysanthemum leaves, carp, and chestnuts.
Scottish and northern English
The first visitors of New Year's Day bring coal, bread, and salt to symbolize warmth, food, and health.
January 6, Saturday, Christmas : Armenian Apostolic Church.
Armenians celebrate Christmas according to the Julian calendar on this day.
FOOD AND DRINK
Armenians make a pudding of chickpeas, wheat berries, nuts, dried fruit, and pomegranate seeds for Christmas. The ingredients, which vary depending on the fruits and nuts available, are said to recall the supplies remaining when Noah sighted dry land, thought to be in what is now Armenia. Realizing he would no longer have to stay afloat, Noah used up his supplies to make a celebratory pudding. Similar dishes are also made in Muslim communities at festival times such as Muharram.
January 6, Saturday, Epiphany : Christian.
Also called Three King's Day (Tres Rejes in Spanish, Trois Rois in French), Little Christmas, Elders' Christmas, and Twelfth Night. This Christian holiday commemorates the visit of the three kings to the infant Jesus. In many Catholic countries this is the time for Christmas fun, Christmas itself being lower key and more religious. Since the Three Kings brought gifts, people exchange presents and children often get large piles of toys. See the recipe for New Orleans King Cake.
FOOD AND DRINK
Argentinean, Guatemalan, and other South American
Generally, beef is served in casserole form. In Hispanic countries, roast sucking pig is a favorite luxuary at Epiphany, in Mexico, a leg of pork or a whole sucking pig (generally weighing between 12 and 15 pounds) is often the choice for the celebratory dinner. Many Hispanic people eat a special cake for the new year, usually spiced, in which they bury coins or charms. The lucky person who gets the gift is guaranteed a prosperous year. Roscon de reyes, a sweet yeast-raised cake with candied peels and fruits, is a traditional Spanish favorite. Mexicans make a variation on this—rosca de reyes, a doughnut-shaped cake served in slices with hot chocolate. Like many similar cakes, it has a small baby Jesus in it. Whoever gets the baby is lucky, but must also invite those present to a February party at which tamales are served. The gift inside is called a muñeca and whoever gets it is termed El Niño Bonito — "the beautiful child."
Filipino
(In the Philippines, Epiphany is sometimes called Elder's Christmas in honor of the wisdom of the Three Kings.) The meal centers on roast young pig with rice and vegetables, followed by an array of cookies and baked goods and fruit. Another festive dish is a whole boneless chicken stuffed with seasoned ground pork and hard-boiled eggs. Filipinos have the hospitable late-afternoon custom called merienda at which many sorts of small dishes and snacks are served to family and guests. At Epiphany, when people pay a lot of visits, this custom is especially important. The selection of items offered ranges from sweet items such as little cakes and bucayo, a sweet coconut dessert, to savory items such as tapa, a homemade beef jerky made from dried, paper-thin slices of beef flavored with garlic and ginger, fritters of shrimp with sweet potatoes, and lumpia, which are egg rolls filled with pork, chilies, and vegetables. There may also be large pots of stew or seasoned seafood, so these "snacks" often do duty for supper as well.
French and French-speaking Caribbean
There are many sorts of king cakes, called gateaux des rois or galette des rois, sometimes made in the shape of a crown and containing a dried bean or a small china baby Jesus. The one who gets the bean is the king or queen of the feast.
Puerto Rican, Jamaican, Guyanan, & other Caribbean & Central American
It's customary to have drinks and snacks—both local specialties as well as common chips and dips from the market—to entertain guests. Meat—especially pork and beef—and cheese, cookies, fruit, dried fruits, and nuts are all typical holiday foods.
January 7, Sunday, Christmas : Coptic Orthodox Christian, Eastern Orthodox Christian, Rastafarian.
In the Russian Orthodox calendar, January 7 is Christmas Day. Having plenty of food, including a large beef or pork roast or turkey, is traditional in Russia, but since Easter is the most important Orthodox holiday, there are few special Christmas dishes besides kasha (buckwheat), which is eaten on all holidays; a compote of dried fruits; and a rice pudding made with milk, almonds, and raisins. In countries that observe Eastern Orthodox Christmas, New Year's Day is celebrated on January 14.
During the Soviet era, religious holidays per se were frowned upon. Instead there was a prolonged winter festival that continued from late December through January 1, and on into the Eastern Orthodox Christmas. This tradition remains.
FOOD AND DRINK
Russians celebrate with parties where vodka flows freely and the table is set with many salads and meat dishes. Whole roast birds, especially turkey or chicken, are common, as is koluptse, cabbage stuffed with a flavored meat mixture. Two salads that appear at every Russian festival are a meat salad and a herring salad. The meat salad, called Salad Olivier after the nineteenth-century chef who invented it, is made of canned peas, cubed boiled carrots, cubed boiled potatoes, pickles, onions, and cubes of lean ham or a sausage such as kielbasa. The herring salad, called "fish under a fur wrap," consists of salted herring covered with layers of potatoes, carrots, boiled eggs, and onions. The two final layers are boiled beets and mayonnaise. The salad is decorated and refrigerated so that the beet juice colors the mayonnaise.
January 21, Sunday, Muharram (moo-hah-ram) (New Year) : Islam.
Muharram is the first month of the Muslim year. The tenth day is the anniversary of the murder of the Prophet Mohammed's son-in-law, Ali, and his grandson, Imam Hussain. Shia Muslims, the minority, keep this as a day of mourning, a practice shared by Sunni Muslims in countries such as Turkey, Pakistan, northern India and southern Lebanon, where the Prophet's family is venerated, Rambunctious new year festivities are precluded, but nonetheless, sweet foods are prepared for guests and sent as gifts to neighbors.
Many countries have traditional dishes made at this time of year. In Turkey, for example, the day is celebrated as the anniversary of Adam's first meeting with Eve and the day when Noah realized the flood was subsiding. Asure (pronounced ash-or-a), a mixture of wheat berries with chickpeas, raisins, and nuts, is always made for this time of year. All the festive dishes at Muharram are confections or desserts rather than main dishes.
FOOD AND DRINK
In Afghanistan and northern India, sweet dishes of rice or thin vermicelli cooked in milk and flavored with saffron, rose water, pistachios, and cardamom are served throughout the month of Muharram and on other festive occasions. In India, Muslims make zarda or meetha pullao, a dish of basmati rice with raisins, saffron, cardamom, and cloves.
In some countries, including Iran, rice is cooked with green herbs, the green ensuring a happy year ahead. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, sweetened yellow lentil dishes are eaten to symbolize the hope for happiness and fertility. Similarly, yellowed pilafs and puddings of rice with saffron, or less expensive turmeric, are popular.
Another popular New Year's rice dish in the Middle East is roz bil shaghria, rice mixed with chickpeas and vermicelli. The vermicelli symbolizes long life, that one's employment will be prolonged, or that one will beget many children. Basmati rice with apricots or raisins and chicken is another festive specialty because its ingredients are expensive. It is also likely to appear at other festive occasions throughout the Middle East.
January 25, Thursday, Robert Burns (1759–1796) : Scotland.
FOOD AND DRINK
Scottish families usually buy haggis from a butcher and concentrate their efforts on homemade foods like Bashed Neeps to accompany the haggis and shortbread for eating after dinner.
January 26, Friday, Australia Day : Australia.
FOOD AND DRINK
Among the national foods of Australia are lamb and kangaroo, which tastes a little like beef. Australians also like meat pies, often with tomato sauce. The favorite dessert in both Australia and New Zealand is pavlova cake, created to honor ballerina Anna Pavlova when she toured Australia and New Zealand. Called simply “pav” for short, it is a cream- and fruit-filled meringue looking like a ballerina’s tutu. Both Australia and New Zealand claim to have invented Pavlova, with New Zealanders having the stronger case because they can trace the recipe back to 1926, the year of Pavlova’s visit. Nonetheless, Australians still make it on birthdays and other special occasions. They also open bottles of wine. Australian wines, especially those made from Shiraz, Chardonnay, and Semillon grapes, are among the best in the world.