Food for survival: why do we eat so much on New Year’s Eve?

Even those who don’t usually seem like fans of cooking and gastronomy, succumb to this temptation called “Food for Survival” during the New Year holidays. We fall under the influence of mass hypnopsychosis and, together with everyone, we roll a cart with future Olivier, aspic and herring under a fur coat.

Have you paid attention to how much food is being prepared for the New Year’s table? The volumes of food and dishes are several times higher than the daily diet. It would seem that the number of guests is about the same, and tastes have not changed. But for some reason, salad is measured in basins, and alcohol is measured in boxes. What do these materialized recipes from the cookbook of several generations symbolize for us?

The sacrament that creates the field of the family

New Year’s holidays have become a cultural phenomenon. Even the most persistent succumb to the temptation to indulge in all serious, forgetting about fitness and proper nutrition. It’s not about willpower. And the fact that the New Year’s feast has long acquired a sacred meaning. “As you celebrate the New Year, so you will spend it,” promises a folk sign. And we kind of understand that our next year does not depend on New Year’s Eve, but we still try to prepare and spend it so that later «it would not be excruciatingly painful.» May the table be abundant, and the whole next year.

Annual rituals help us structure life, give it order, predictability. The night from December 31 to January 1 takes on a special meaning: it seems to reset everything that was unpleasant and painful, and accumulates everything that was valuable and important for 12 months. Is this not an occasion for rejoicing and feasting?

But this tradition has another, hidden motive. New Year’s dishes have become for us an analogue of ancient sacrifices, and a family feast on New Year’s Eve is nothing more than a legitimate sacrament, a sacred ceremony, a symbol of family unity in the name of a specific goal.

When family members get together, a so-called psychological field is formed. It is saturated with the family unconscious, charged the more, the more mysteries, secrets, unexpressed feelings and conflicts are “hardwired” in a particular family system.

The family unconscious has no statute of limitations. No matter how many years have passed since the last heated quarrel or a bright event that was not lived through and not accepted to the end, the reactions of family members are still sharp.

Similar processes take place in the old company of friends, which celebrates holidays from year to year. People, gathered together, begin to behave strangely from the point of view of an outside observer. Adult children in the presence of their parents turn into capricious little usurpers, elderly relatives instruct the young, brothers and sisters recall to each other grievances and skirmishes of twenty years ago, girlfriends eagerly join in old disputes, small children calm down or, on the contrary, begin to rage …

As if someone is forcing us to return to the past, step on sore spots and play by the old rules. Or even pulls carefully hidden secrets into the light of God.

Renowned family therapist Murray Bowen, who explored the unconscious field of the family, describes the story in the book. Every year he flew to his hometown for Thanksgiving, where all his American relatives gathered. Before landing, he always felt as if an invisible fog was enveloping his consciousness and he was turning from an adult man and a venerable psychotherapist into an unlucky and helpless boy.

Coping with the powerful influence of the field is difficult. But sometimes it is at such celebrations that family members who are expected to play their usual role declare themselves in a new way. This is well shown in the film «Purely English Murder», where the hero of Alexei Batalov, a doctor, on Christmas night reveals many secrets in the old lord’s house, which is why the family field is electrified to the limit.

The table as a truce and silencer of communication

Sometimes it is difficult for people to talk to each other, even if they are formally close and dear. And then the table comes to the rescue, and the mission of mediation is assigned to the food.

“During the sacred ceremony – the New Year’s feast – food becomes a buffer, a protective fence that can distract from uncomfortable experiences and awkward pauses,” explains Ev Khazina.

Each of us will remember how actively guests are involved in the process of laying out dishes. “Would you like red wine or white wine?”, “Which salad would you like?”, “Very tasty! Tell me, how did you prepare it?

And the hostess immediately, almost under the chime, lists the ingredients, which, of course, no one will remember even after an hour. But the pause is filled, the awkwardness of the moment is lifted.

The more understatement in the relationship, the more standard, «rigid» set of dishes. In families where a huge lump of unspoken words and unexpressed feelings has accumulated, the amount of alcohol is directly proportional. Other traditional silencers of communication are added to heavy intoxicating artillery: TV or off-scale musical noise.

The less the audience is ready to say to each other, the denser the table is lined with plates and salad bowls. The logic is simple: the mouth is occupied with food — there is no time for talking.

What food tells, but people are silent

Festive food is a «portal» to the past. Conditional chicken in the oven, Napoleon cake, herring under a fur coat, salad Olivier — nothing but a hypnotic anchor: symbols containing a family and general cultural message. In an instant they take us to memories dear to our hearts. Indeed, in their composition, by and large, there is nothing unusual and exotic. But then why are they so valuable to us?

Once upon a time, in times of total scarcity, chicken seemed like a luxury. Mayonnaise was bought in advance and stored until the New Year. Bananas were ripening on cabinets. What now seems to us ordinary, everyday, was once a real prey. Food obtained with difficulty acquires a special weight and voice.

She seems to declare to all those gathered: “We have experienced the difficulties and joys of this year. We made it. Everything will be fine».

The cake, over which my mother conjured for a day, whispers: «I am a symbol of my mother’s love and dedication.» Caviar, which can now be bought in every store, looks like a victory over scarcity thinking: «We can afford it, we have overcome our limitations, we have gone beyond the impossible.» Champagne, shooting with a cork, sprinkles guests with splashes, like holy water. The obligatory New Year’s salad «Olivier» seems to remind us: no matter how wealthy each of us is, we are all equal in this holiday.

And here we are sitting at the table with those who also «survived this year.» What was between us and «sparkled» goes into the background. It is important that we are together now.

We eat family symbolic festive food and understand that at the moment it is this that unites us and gives a feeling of well-being, albeit temporary. Life is fleeting, and such meetings are rare. There will be a place for diets and common sense — later, when we are left alone with ourselves again.