Chinese New Year or Spring Festival is the biggest and most popular and widely celebrated festival of the Chinese calendar. It is a time were almost everything that one comes across is associated with positive attributes and has symbolic as well as cultural connotations. Most Chinese New Year foods and snacks are selected based on what they represent for the new year, such as luck, prosperity and happiness etc.
Symbolic gifts attached to the most popular ones include oranges and tangerines and such items as chocolates. Round shaped, bright orange colored citrus fruits are preferred because their names, when pronounced sounds like ‘fortunes’ or ‘gold’ in Chinese. The large round luminous elements depicted on it are the full moon and they are presented here to ensure that the new year is prosperous. Their sweet juicy flesh symbolizes family happiness and togetherness and segments – all generations of the children in the family that come together for celebration.
Other lucky fruits consumed in Chinese New Year include pine apples, pomegranates and pomelos. The spiny skin and the head of a pineapple are regarded today as a sign of wealth together with the good luck on the way for all citizens irrespective of their status. Oranges symbolise fertility as they have seeds in the form of juicy rubies that bring hope of more children as a continuance of the lineage. Large honey sweet ripe pomelos, firm and shiny skinned reflect the ideas of plenty and happiness for the whole society.
Other types of nuts and dried fruits are also grouped into the Chinese New Year table settings. Some ancients include almond, walnut, chestnut, lotus seed, red date and dried lotus root slices which have positive symbolism. While the nuts are hard and crunchy they symbolize strength and toughness: while the togetherness theme depicts the many seeds contained in one fruit or nuts shell. Presidents of early arrival of children are indicated by the terms used for dried red dates with lotus or glutinous rice paste stuffed inside. Sweet lotus seed and candied lotus root also evokes desires for male heirs and descendants to continue the family line and honour.
The Chinese nian gao, which is glutinous rice cake that is often stamped with Chinese characters, is eaten at the Chinese New Year because its name literally translates to ‘increasingly higher year’. Sweet and doughy structures relate the message to the desires for increase in financial prosperity and higher income with each proceeding year. Other items include sugar coated pumpkin seeds and convey the meaning of the phrase may you have money year in year out.
The speciality cookies, biscuits, crackers as well as confections also have their connotations associated with specific greetings, filial respect or there could be homophonous words incorporated in the item wishing certain luck. Bity bakeries flavorless small butter cakes in the likeness of ingots for silver and gold for the new year. Pineapple tarts represents arriving at a place of good fortune, sliced sugared lotus root represents auspiciousness, candied winter melon symbolize sweet wishes for intelligent and polite offspring. The ball of glutinous rice filled with sweet red bean paste symbolizes family togetherness and joy; whereas nian gao, made from a piece of round and thin block, symbolize an increase in income or profit for each year ahead. It is normal to get simple phrases that might make people contemplate as well as aim high when consuming a fortune cookie.
A variety of regional signature snacks and delicacies are also manifestations of local culture and specialties associated with blessing from seasons. Whereas bamboo shoots and yuba tofu skins shape a hope for children growing straight and tall; long flat rice noodles symbolise longevity. Almost all sorts of dumplings are filled with auspicious items such as leeks, celery signifying hard work, shrimp representing joyfulness, and garlic chive – patience. Fish symbolizes surplus and calls for fortune for the New Year among other things. Chicken, duck and pork entrées represent such wanted qualities as faithfulness, truthfulness, and good intentions towards people. Cubes of steamed buns filled with red bean paste or lotus paste are shaped like a moon and symbolize the aesthetics of balanced seasons reminding of the Chinese values of moderation, family, and friendship.
The huge variety of symbolic Chinese New Year goodies and snacks make up a delicious collage of what the averages Chinese wants in terms of Lunar New Year. The practice of eating these treats makes families remember to observe tradition, expect new fortunes and reunite to spread joy, blessings as well as luck for several more blessed and happy new years.
