This article is adapted from the January 4, 2025, edition of Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Things newsletter. You can sign up here. Just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, a crowd gathered on the streets of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, craning their necks to catch a glimpse of the evening’s main attraction dangling above. Anyone expecting a glittering ball drop would’ve been in for a surprise. Dropping shiny orbs to mark the last 10 seconds of the year is so, well, last year. In Lebanon, they drop 250 pounds of sausage. Since 1997,…
