Eating the 13th

Friday the 13th! Scary for some. Since we try to do food stuff here on Fridays, I thought I’d remind everyone about a few food related superstitions to help you avoid trouble while dining today.
There is a long tradition of athletes and food superstitions. Known as the “Chicken Man,” Wade Boggs would eat chicken before every game.  Of course, he was obsessively compulsive about his game day routine in other areas as well. In NASCAR, there is the drivers’ adamant refusal to deal with peanuts in their hulls. The shells seem to bother drivers since shelled peanuts or nuts in candy bars are fine otherwise. One theory is that in 1937 there was a race in which peanut shells were sprinkled on the cars of five drivers, all of whom crashed. Another possible story holds that one of Junior Johnson’s crew was eating peanuts when an engine blew, and the blame fell on the nuts themselves. Others claim that  mechanics would often find peanut shells from the nearby grandstands in the cylinders of engines that had failed in the 1930’s.  A big superstition for many anglers is that it’s bad luck to have a banana in your boat. It’s thought the common superstition arose a long time ago, after sailors aboard a vessel carrying bananas became deathly ill after eating the fruit.

It’s not just athletes.  Think about spilling salt, rice at weddings, garlic and the evil eye, and eating black-eyed peas at New Years and you get some sense of how this day and food go together.

Any food superstitions that are favorites of yours?  Any concerns about Friday the 13th?  Let me know – I’m going to hide now.