Hungarian New Year Traditions: What People Eat, Do and Avoid

Checked 6 November 2026. Most of this comes from Hungarian reference works: Magyar Néprajz VII, the Magyar Néprajzi Lexikon and Tekla Dömötör's Magyar népszokások. They record old village customs, some national and some local, drawn from about the last 150 years. So we name the place where we can. None of it tells you what people do today, unless a survey says so.

The old New Year was Christmas

Magyar Néprajz VII says that throughout the Middle Ages the year in Hungary was counted from Christmas, 25 December. A 1 January start became general only after the 1582 calendar reform, and the source calls it final in 1691, by a papal decree. The shifting start left a word behind: New Year was also called kiskarácsony, little Christmas. Hungarian kings also took up a custom of Italian origin: 13th-century charters point to royal gift-giving on 1 January.

Then came a borrowing. The lexicon says New Year's Eve, szilveszter, takes the content and mood of its customs from New Year's Day, and folk tradition treats the two days as one.

The folk clock, from 31 December to 2 January

31 December, day and evening

• The onion calendar. Known nationally, per the lexicon. Twelve onion layers, one for each month, each with a pinch of salt, went on top of the oven on the last evening. In the morning, a layer with melted salt marked a rainy month. Dömötör describes the same thing with twelve cloves of garlic.
• Pouring lead. General, past tense in the lexicon. The shape of the cooling lead predicted a future husband's trade, mainly on New Year's Eve.
• Noise. Dömötör. She lists three possible old reasons: evil powers, driving out the old year, or plain festive licence. She also gives a story from Hajdúszoboszló, where the women are said to have banged baking trays and rung the bell to frighten off the Turks. It's a legend. Today's night has its own page: what the midnight hour looks like in the city.
• Hejgetés. Moldavian villages, still done in a few places in the 1950s. Lads went from house to house with whips, bells, flute and drum.
• Driving out the old man. Somló area. A young man dressed as an old one was whipped through the streets by a child, showing the new year chasing out the old.

Midnight

• The coin. Sóvidék in Székely Land, from one popular 2004 article, no citations. People sat clutching a coin and sprang up at midnight, to jump into the new year with money.
• The anthem. Press, one year. On public media on 31 December 2025 the anthem played at midnight, 444.hu reported. We found no 2026 schedule. The Parliamentary Library's author was surprised to find that the anthem went 145 years without being written into law. The library page does not say where its count starts: 1989 minus 145 is 1844. The anthem first appears in law in Act XXXI of 1989.

1 January, morning

• Golden water. General belief; Deszk and Sarkadkeresztúr named. Whoever drew first from the well at dawn was thought to draw aranyosvíz, golden water, that brought luck. At Deszk the first villager up fetched water and, asked what they had brought, said three times: strength, health, blessing, peace, luck. At Sarkadkeresztúr the saying was that whoever first carried water would take the "golden water" and have luck in everything that year.
• The first visitor. Several places. A man was hoped for, because he brought luck. In the Gyimes area, a male visitor meant male lambs and calves. At Szalonta a chimney sweep also counted as a good sign.
• Nothing leaves the house. Jászdózsa, Bukovina, Moldavia, Gyimes. At Jászdózsa, giving anything away would make the cow's yield fly off. In Bukovina and Moldavia the sweepings were kept indoors, and Gyimes Hungarians didn't even muck out the stable.
• No work. General. No cooking, washing, sewing or yoking animals. Washing was banned from the first day of Christmas until 2 January. For the modern opposite, see baths on the first morning of the year.
• The day repeats. "General belief". What happened to you on this day would recur all year, so anyone beaten today would be beaten until next New Year.
• The Aranycsitkó. Magyarózd, Transylvania. Before dawn, men and boys cracked whips and shook cow-bells. A man called the Aranycsitkó shook a bell, whinnied, opened doors and threw in hazelnuts, walnuts and apples.

1 January, at the table

• Poultry was out. "Well known" in the national ethnography. It would scratch the luck away. At Jászdózsa, the luck would fly away.
• Pork was in. Same source, and Dömötör. The pig roots the luck forward.
• Small seeds, lentils first. Same source. Lentils, rice and millet: many small seeds meant plenty of money. Yet Hajdúszoboszló forbade porridge, for fear of a rash.
• Strudel, to stretch the year. Sárkeresztes, Pereszlény, the Tápió villages. At Sárkeresztes it was baked so the year would stretch long. In Pereszlény, curd strudel was eaten for long life.
• Aspic at Lónya. One village. Each girl put a bone in the yard, and whoever's bone the dog took overnight would marry that year.
• Greetings with pigs in them. Vasszilvágy, 1960s; Moldavia. Boys in Vasszilvágy wished for wine, wheat, apricots and a short-tailed piglet. Moldavian Hungarians wished for a long-tailed one. A verse collected at Kalotaszeg was less friendly: you killed a pig and stuffed sausages, so if you leave me out, may you see no more New Years.

The villages disagreed

People at Ipolyhídvég avoided hare in case it carried the luck away. A popular 2004 article says the opposite: eat hare, because it runs off with the old year's troubles. Poppy-seed dishes were forbidden in the Ipoly area for fear of fleas, though poppy seed is at home on the Christmas table: see the Christmas side of the calendar, bejgli included.

What is measured today

We found one measurement of how many people follow the food rules, and it is old and commercial. Kométa, a food brand, ran an online survey of 1,310 Hungarian internet users in November 2019.

• 52% of men and about four in ten women said they avoid the foods said to carry the luck away on 1 January.
• People in their forties were the most superstitious group, at almost half.
• 85% of people in their twenties said they don't bother with the superstitions around the meal at all.

The habit it found strongest is not in the old records we read at all. Seven in ten think of virsli, the Hungarian frankfurter, for New Year's Eve, and 93% said there is no szilveszter without it. That's a modern habit, and in 2024 one retailer reported that about 30% of the year's virsli sells in December. Sparkling wine came first, named by nine in ten. As for the night itself, every second person named conversation and board games with friends.

On lentils, Index put it nicely in 2017: an explanation everyone knows to the point of boredom and doesn't believe, yet nobody would skip the New Year's lentil lunch.

Where we come in

We have no data on what our guests do about lentils, so this page has no inside knowledge from us. We can only offer the evening: a New Year's Eve that finishes at Instant-Fogas, meeting at 19:00 at Oktogon with welcome champagne, and with the party ticket for that last stop included, worth €50. If you are here for longer, there is the regular guided crawl on an ordinary night in town.

Questions people ask

Why are lentils linked to New Year in Hungary?

The national ethnography says small seeds such as lentils, rice and millet were favoured in the belief that many small seeds meant plenty of money in the coming year.

Why was chicken avoided on New Year's Day in Hungary?

Ethnographers recorded the belief that poultry would scratch the luck away. At Jászdózsa, the luck would fly away. Pork was the opposite, because the pig roots the luck forward.

How many people follow these customs today?

The one measurement we found is a 2019 online survey by the food brand Kométa, with 1,310 respondents: 52% of men and about four in ten women said they avoid the foods said to carry the luck away, while 85% of people in their twenties ignore the superstitions.

What is szilveszter?

It is the Hungarian name for New Year's Eve. The ethnographic lexicon says it borrows the content and mood of its customs from New Year's Day, and folk tradition treats the two days as one.