Around the world, people have different traditional foods to celebrate different festivals. Traditional foods also show a new year of good luck and good health: An English Christmas dinner has a meal of turkey, and it also includes pies and plum puddings (李子布丁). In Germany, Christmas is celebrated with bread, cookies and cakes, which are made like Christmas trees. In France, Christmas dessert is a cake filled with butter cream. In southern parts of India, there is a three-day festival in mid-January called Pongal. It includes rice and a dish of rice cooked with sugar that is shared with families and friends. Japan celebrates New Year with a seven-day festival. It begins from January 1st. Food is prepared before the festival so people don't need to cook during the festival. On New Year's Day,variousdishes called Osechi ryori (御节料理) are served—each dish is a wish for the New Year. In most Asian countries, the New Year begins with the first full moon of the first Chinese lunar (阴历的) month. Each place has its special food to welcome the coming year. People in China prepare their food ahead of time to avoid the possibility that using a knife during New Year's time might "cut luck"; foods with lucky names are popular, such as fish, which sounds like "surplus(多余)".
