New Year’s food traditions around the world

CNN — New Year’s Day is meant for fresh starts. Bas Czerwinski/AFP/Getty Images In the Netherlands, fried oil balls, or oliebollen, are sold by street carts and are traditionally consumed on New Year’s Eve and at special celebratory fairs. Nishihama/Shutterstock In Japanese households, families eat buckwheat soba noodles, or toshikoshi soba, at midnight on New Year’s Eve to bid farewell to the year gone by and welcome the year to come. One special Polish New Year’s Eve preparation of pickled herring, called Śledzie marynowane, is made by soaking whole salt herrings in water for 24 hours and then layering them in a jar with onions, allspice, sugar and white vinegar. V. Belov/Shutterstock Kransekage, or wreath cake, is a cake tower composed of many concentric rings of cake layered atop one another, and they are made for New Year’s Eve and other special occasions in Denmark and Norway.