Rosh Hashanah Symbolic Foods

Rosh Hashanah meals usually include apples and honey, to symbolize a sweet new year. Various other foods with a symbolic meaning may be served, depending on local minhag ("custom"), such as cooked tongue or other meat from the head of an animal or fish (to symbolize the "head" of the year).
Foods consumed with the Yehi Ratzons vary depending on the community. Some of the symbolic foods eaten are dates, black-eyed beans, leek, spinach and gourd, all of which are mentioned in the Talmud. Pomegranates are used in many traditions, to symbolize being fruitful like the pomegranate with its many seeds. The use of apples and honey, symbolizing a sweet year, is a late medieval Ashkenazi addition, though it is now almost universally accepted. Typically, round challah bread is served, to symbolize the cycle of the year. Gefilte fish and Lekach are commonly served by Ashkenazic Jews on this holiday. On the second night, new fruits are served to warrant inclusion of the shehecheyanu blessing, the saying of which would otherwise be doubtful (as the second day is part of the "long day" mentioned above).
Other symbolic foods are eaten in a special Rosh Hashanah Seder, particularly in the Sephardic and Mizrahi communities. Symbolic foods are eaten in a ceremony called the Yehi Rasones or Yehi Ratzones.
Yehi Ratzon means "May it be Your will", and is the name of the ceremony because it is traditional to eat foods symbolic of a good year and to recite a short prayer beginning with the Hebrew words "Yehi Ratson" ("May it be Your will") over each one, with the name of the food in Hebrew or Aramaic often presenting a play on words or pun in Hebrew or Aramaic. The foods eaten at this time have thus become known as "yehi ratsones". Typical foods, often served on a large platter called a Yehi Ratson platter, eaten by modern Sephardic Jews include apples dipped in honey, or baked or sometimes in the form of a compote called mansanada; dates; pomegranates, or black eyed peas; pumpkin in the form of savory pumpkin-filled pastries called rodanchas; leeks in the form of fritters called keftedes de prasa; beets usually baked and peeled; and the head of a fish: usually a fish course with a whole fish, head intact. It is also common to symbolize a year filled with blessings by eating foods with stuffing on Rosh Hashanah such as a stuffed, roast bird or a variety of stuffed vegetables called legumbres yaprakes.