For me, Thanksgiving is my once a year cooking marathon. The one day when it feels like I’m cooking from sunrise to sundown. For my mom, the Lunar New Year is her epic cooking day. Grating 13lbs of turnips and turning them into 10 batches of turnip cake (lo bak go) is nothing more than a routine for the holiday. Braising pig’s feet with dried oysters, steaming two chickens, mixing up a big bowl of ginger scallion sauce, and cleaning and decorating the house with bright red and pink flowers are just five out of the hundreds of things to check off on her to do list. Watching the pace she works at while self examining mine, I shake my head in shame. There is just no comparison. When I was a child I always wonder if she enjoys the craziness, or is it simply just a task that’s been passed down and oblige to do every year. She tells me that it’s not the work that she enjoys, but the results and influence it has on me. The Lunar New Year reminds me and helps me stay connected to my Asian culture, but more importantly it keeps me connected to her; her turnip cakes, her style of decorating the house, her passion for cooking, and her spirit of reminding me how important one day can be. Thanks mom.
Many of the food cooked and served during the Lunar New Year are symbolic for prosperity and good fortune. Two of my favorites are “Nian Go (New Year Cake)” and “Fat Go (Prosperity Cake)”. Nian Go is a made from glutinous rice and in Guangzhou, my birth city, it is sweeten with large sticks of brown sugar which gives it a reddish brown color. My mom likes to add sweet red beans to her Nian Go batter, which helps break down the chewy gummy texture that regular Nian Go has without the bean. Fat Go, which resembles cornmeal muffins, taste similar to a pound cake but a lot fluffier and softer in texture.
Since the eight character sounds similar to the word fortune, the number eight is well known in Chinese culture to symbolize prosper and wealth. To represent and bring fourth good fortune for the coming year, my parents prepared 8 dishes and 1 soup for the big feast, which is eaten on the eve of the New Year.
Besides the food and the celebration, another favorite part of the holiday, especially for kids, are the red envelopes. These little red pockets of joy represent good luck and are given out from married couples to close friends and family. They are usually decorated with brightly color flowers, Chinese characters and phrases that represent prosperity and longevity, and unlicensed popular cartoon characters.
Related posts:
Phew…I’m tired just thinking about all of the energy that went into making all of these fantastic dishes!
Quite the feast and celebration!
Thank You! I really don’t know where my mom gets all that energy to cook and organize everything. She amazes me every time.
Wow so much good food,fun and laughter. Thats the why Chinese New Year should be spent. I am glad you had a good time.
Everything looks so yummy!! I am glad you had a good New year
i <3 chinese new year festivities. it was postponed for us here in MD but the dinner will occur this coming sunday.
i love receiving lee ci, even tho i'm technically an adult, i'm still single/unmarried. it's just so much fun!
here's to a wonderful year, full of prosperity and good health and laughter!
Happy New Year to you as well! I’m trying to collect as much red envelopes as I can get before I have to start passing them out.
Hey Shao, wow what a feast. I wanted to eat everything. I really miss celebrating CNY back home in Malaysia, it’s very important that we do all these festive stuff because they define who we are, our root, our culture, and traditions. I wish I could hear those obnoxiously noisy and cheesy CNY songs blaring here, and to see red decorations all over the house. It’s really awesome.
Bee, hopefully next year you’ll be able to celebrate CNY back home. I always wanted to spend the New Year in Asia and hopefully I’ll be able to do so in the near future. Lol on the cheesy CNY songs! I know what you mean, but I have a feeling I’ll miss it if I didn’t here it during the holidays.
Moms are crazy – I’m constantly amazed by the amount of work performed and the unfailing energy displayed by my mom around big holidays and parties. It’s like she’s got some hidden back-up battery! Oddly enough, she says the same thing about her mother.
I think moms are secretly hiding some sort of backup energy generators in them as well!
Happiest new year wishes to you, Shao!
Happy New Year to you as well!
Happy Lunar New Year! I love this amazing feast it looks so delicious! And I don’t know how your mom finds the time to cook all this food, but I applaud her. What a wonderful tradition!
Thanks Nastassia! I don’t know how she does it. Hopefully someday I’ll be at that level.
Looks fantastic! Food is the best way to celebrate important holidays!
Couldn’t agree more! Good thing big holidays only comes around once a year or else I’ll be in big trouble.
Wow, it’s unbelievable, your mother grated 13lbs of turnips for cooking turnip cakes this lunar new year. What a massive job!
I just can’t continue after grating 2 turnips, won’t feel my hands belong to me anymore.
This year, I did not have reunion dinner with my parents since I was not in Singapore. Had a really simple one with friends instead, where I am staying now. It was still fun and a different festive atmosphere. Wow, looking at the food feast you had, I am so hungry and ready for another round of food, though I have already been eating so much!
that’s a lot of yummy-looking food. i was glad i stopped by chinatown (nyc) yesterday to see some of the parade, but my favorite restaurants looked way too crowded.
Wow, that looks like quite a feast! Chinese New Year always falls on or around my birthday and this year we decorated with a Chinese theme rather than a birthday theme!