As the most important Chinese holiday approaches, many people are looking forward to celebrating new luck and prosperity anew. Also commonly known as the Lunar New Year or Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year is frequently associated with traditional dishes that bring luck and fortune to the year.
Until this day, customs and traditions are still practiced among the Chinese community worldwide, which include decorating, offering sacrifices to ancestors, family reunion dinners, exchanging gifts, and watching fireworks and festival dances during the Chinese New Year.
Undoubtedly, as the Chinese community celebrates the new year, their traditional dishes are the most anticipated part of the festive season.
Traditional dishes during the Chinese New Year are associated with a good fortune, with each evoking symbolic meanings of health, wealth and prosperity. As travel company and China-oriented online platform China Highlights stated, popular dishes during the festive season are dumplings, spring rolls, rice cakes and fish.
Dumplings
Typically, dumplings resemble Chinese silver ingot consisting of chopped vegetables, minced pork, shrimp, fish, chicken, or beef wrapped in thin elastic dough which can be cooked by boiling, steaming, frying, or baking but steamed dumplings are most commonly used during this festive season. Because of their rich and sweet taste and ingot-looking shape, Chinese dumplings symbolize wealth, meaning it brings a prosperous life.
Spring rolls
A Cantonese dim sum dish spring rolls are a golden-yellow cylindrical-shaped rolls filled with pork, vegetables, or something sweet in tiny dough wrappers. Similar to dumplings, the golden rolls are meant to symbolize golden bars, which bring wealth and prosperity during the year.
Vegetable dishes
Vegetable dishes are a must-have during the festive season. Vegetable dishes with long and leafy greens, including lettuce, cabbage, or broccoli are most commonly eaten during Chinese New Year. Aside from the nutrients one can get from such viands, these vegetable dishes bring wealth and longevity to life.
Noodles
Another popular dish is long noodles, which are made up of Chinese egg noodles or Asian wheat flour noodles that are cooked and longer than regular noodles and served uncut. Long noodles consist of broth and various vegetables included on the plate which can be cooked by boiling or frying. Just like its name, long noodles bring longevity and happiness into the eater’s life.
Chicken
Chicken dishes for Chinese New Year often serve a whole chicken, including the head and its feet. The chicken is often braised or roasted with seasonings like ginger and soy. Chicken is considered lucky as it provides protein for the body, and a whole chicken is traditionally presented to serve as a blessing, protection and wholeness to families feasting in the celebrations.
Shrimp
Shrimp-based dishes are crispy and flavorful. They usually have a salty and sweet mild flavor, which is often tender, and they can be paired with vegetables and rice. These dishes have become a common part in the Chinese New Year menu as shrimp stands as a symbol of happiness and good fortune since shrimp in Cantonese is similar to the sound of laughter.
Fish
One of the most familiar traditional dishes for the Chinese New Year are steamed fish which comes in different varieties, including crucian carp, Chinese mud carp, and catfish. Like chicken, steamed fish dishes provide good nutrients and proteins in the body, best served as a whole as a symbol of good fortune and prosperity for the brand-new year.
Rice cakes
Another lucky dish consumed during the festival season is nian gao, a glutinous rice cake. These rice cakes come in different flavors. In Northern Chinese cuisine, the rice cake is mainly yellow and white in color and sweet in taste, and made with either glutinous rice or yellow rice; while in Eastern or Shanghainese Chinese cuisine, it is white in color and made with non-glutinous rice. In Cantonese cuisine, nian gao is made with brown sugar, which brings out its dark yellow color, and it is also stretchy and sticky; while in Fujian or Hokkien cuisine, it consists of sugar, peanuts, fruits and seeds. Glutinous rice cakes are said to symbolize higher income, either in academics or career.
Sweet rice balls
Sweet rice balls are said to be the season’s signature delicacy. Sweet rice balls are round-shaped glutinous rice balls that consist of sticky rice flour and sugar with fillings like peanut butter or sesame paste. The round-shaped delicacy symbolizes wholeness and togetherness within the family.
Fruits
The Chinese New Year celebrations are not complete without fruits, specifically those of the citrus kind, such as oranges, which have a sweet-tart and bitter flavor; tangerines, known for their sweet and strong flavor as well as small, thick, rough, and sweet flesh; and pomelo, whose flavors range from sweet to sour. Due to their round shapes and golden color, citrus fruits are said to bring luck and fortune, as well as fullness and rich in wealth.
With the distinct and unique flavors and characteristics of Chinese cuisine, a festive and auspicious feast are indeed a part of celebrating Chinese New Year as it once again kick-start hopes and anticipations of more luck and fortune for all. — Angela Kiara S. Brillantes
