New Year Cuisines

  During Chinese New Year, there are many customs and traditions that are followed. But aside from traditions, there are foods that are eaten especially for the New Year.

The first of which is "Nian Gao" or 年糕.
There are two types of nian gao, one is savory and eaten as an entree, the other is sweet and more as a dessert. It is considered good luck to eat nian gao because "nian gao" is a homonym for "higher year." The Chinese word 粘 (nián) is "sticky", and sounds like 年 which is "year", and the word 糕 (gāo), meaning "cake" is identical in sound to 高, meaning "high or tall". Therefore nian gao symbolizes raising oneself taller in each coming year (年年高升 niánnián gāoshēng).  Nian gao also symbolizes a rich, sweet life and the round shape signifies family reunion.

Nian gao is made of sweet glutinous rice and is sticky like marshmallows, but much more firm.The taste is subtle and sometimes is made with rice wine. There are also other variations of nian gao with a flaky crust baked on the outside with the same sticky texture on the inside.The savory nian gao can usually be found in your typical Chinese restaurant with varying shapes served. It is stir-fried with vegetable and maybe some meat, very chewy.

Savory Nian Gao

Store bought Nian Gao

Flaky Crust Nian Gao

Dumplings/Pot-stickers 水餃 or 餃子are also eaten because of the shape of dumplings are similar to gold ingots, meaning wealth. Ingots are the Chinese equivalent to gold bars.
Dumplings are a flour based skin with meat and/or vegetables inside.There are variations where kimchi (fermented spicy cabbage from Korea) is put inside, or even corn with meat. They can be prepared in a variety of ways. You can steam cook, boil, or pan fry them. They are usually eaten dipped in soy sauce. There is even a type of dumplings with "soup" inside.Dumplings can also be folded in a variety of ways as well.

Gold Ingots

Dumplings

 A whole fish魚, head and tail attached, is also served at a typical Chinese New Year Dinner. The Chinese word for fish, yu, sounds like the word for abundance, and it is believed that eating fish will help your wishes come true in the year to come. It is also important to leave some fish left and not finish it because that way you will have excess wealth for the coming year. The head and tail attached represents the beginning and end of the year.



Oranges, tangerines, and pomelos are used as an offering to the gods and are also eaten because the words for sound like wealth, riches, and "to have" (seeing a pattern?).

Tang Yuan, literally "soup sphere" is eaten on the last day of Chinese New Year called "Yuan Xiao Jie" or the Lantern Festival.  It is made from glutinous rice flour. It is cooked and served in boiling water. Tang Yuan can be small or large, and filled or unfilled and are usually white in color but for customer appeal sometimes are colored to other colors. My personal favorite is when they are filled with sweet peanut filling or sesame filling. It is sticky and sweet. The spherical shape represents togetherness of the family as well and is meant to be eaten with family like all the foods.

Tang Yuan with sesame

Colored Tang Yuan

There are countless of foods that are eaten during Chinese New Year, varying twice as much from region to region. The ones I have listed here are the most common and the ones I am most familiar with. Everyday of Chinese New Year is a feast, a mix of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years. That's why we eat and celebrate so much with so many different foods and traditions!