Chinese New Year- Food Traditions

On New Year’s Day

the Chinese family eating, a vegetable meal named Jai (Jai - is a rich vegetarian stew of vegetables, seeds, nuts and noodles. This traditional Chinese New Year offers a copious mixture of textures and hues, from greens to browns and gold).Some of vegetables and ingredients are good to have in the New Year cuisine, because of superstitions; for example Lotus seed- suggest to have several male progeny, Ginkgo Nut –represents ingots (Ingots –is a golden bar); Black seaweed- sounds like “measureless in wealth”; Dehydrated bean curd – is homonym for fulfillment of wealth and happiness; Bamboo sprouts- pronounced like “wishing the everything will be fine”, but there is an exception as  fresh beans curd or tofu and all white food, inasmuch as color of white associating with misfortune and death. Other dishes include a whole fish, fish symbolize abundance and closeness; whole chicken signify prosperity; long noodles characterize long life; dumplings indicate productivity and wealth for the whole family; rose apple for wisdom and peace; apricot for gold and wealth; Chinese cabbage for 100 types of prosperity luck.

Here is a list of products and symbolic interpretation:Fatt Gou cake, represent prosperity and abundance and it’s baking during yew year only.

• Banana, commonly offered on altar, for education and scholastic luck.
• Bean curd sticks -blessing the house.
• Bean sprouts, sound like, great start into New Year. 
• Cashew, meaning gold and money.
• Chinese garlic represents opportunity and prolonging life. 
• Coconut – indicate supporting and togetherness.
  
• Eggs and Duck – fertility luck.
• Egg roll – money, wealth, gold. 
• Grapes, suggests wealth and abundance, family harmony and fertility luck. 
• Orange and Mandarin – gold, wealth.  
• Pomegranate symbolizes, large number of children and family members, food for each day of the year, because it has 365 seeds. (Very interesting, I come across in different cultures and traditions, that Pomegranate has the same meaning.)

The New Year dinner isn’t complete without rice; rice is very important aspect in Chinese cuisine, it symbolizes unity between Heaven and Earth. Also, it is crucial to have chinese sticky rice cake on New Years. It is considered to ensure good luck for all the year round.