What dishes do you eat during Chinese New Year?

Chinese New Year is a traditional festival of our Chinese nation, also known as New Year's Eve. It is a major festival with a long history. During the Chinese New Year, there are many traditional festival foods. Due to the different cultures in the south and the north, the food eaten during the Chinese New Year is also different. Generally speaking, the more common foods during the Chinese New Year are Laba porridge, rice cakes, dumplings and glutinous rice balls, etc. The south mainly eats glutinous rice balls, while the north is more accustomed to eating dumplings during the Chinese New Year.

What to eat during Chinese New Year?

1. Laba Congee

Later, the La Festival became popular among the people, and its custom still remains today, which is to eat "Laba porridge" (in some places it is "Laba rice") on the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month to celebrate the harvest.

"Laba porridge is made with yellow rice, white rice, glutinous rice, millet, water chestnut rice, chestnuts, red beans, peeled jujube paste, etc., cooked in boiling water, and then dyed with red peach kernels, almonds, melon seeds, peanuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts, white sugar, brown sugar, and grapes for coloring."

2. Rice cake

Nian gao is a steamed cake made from sticky glutinous rice or rice flour, and is a seasonal food during the Lunar New Year. Rice cakes come in three colors: red, yellow and white, symbolizing gold and silver. Rice cakes are also called "nianniangao", which is homophonic with "nianniangao", which means "higher every year", implying that people's work and life will improve year by year.

3. Rice Balls

Glutinous Rice Balls, also known as Yuanxiao, Tangtuan and Fuyuanzi, are spherical food made from glutinous rice flour. They usually have fillings and are cooked and eaten with soup. In Jiangsu, Shanghai and other places, there is a custom of eating glutinous rice balls on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year. Glutinous rice balls symbolize a better family reunion, and eating glutinous rice balls means family happiness and reunion in the new year.

4. Dumplings

Dumplings originated from ancient jiaozi, originally named jiao'er. They were first invented by Zhang Zhongjing, a medical saint from Nanyang during the Eastern Han Dynasty. They are also called boiled dumplings and are a New Year's food. There is a folk song that goes, "During the Great Cold and Lesser Cold, eat dumplings to celebrate the New Year."

“Jiaozi” is a homonym for the Chinese character for “dumpling”, which means the moment when the new year intersects the old year. Eating dumplings during the Spring Festival means good luck. In addition, dumplings are shaped like ingots, and making dumplings means wrapping up good luck.

5. Spring rolls

Spring rolls are also called spring pancakes, spring plates, and pancakes. Spring rolls are made by wrapping stuffing in dry dough and then deep-frying. They evolved from the custom of eating spring plates on the day of the Beginning of Spring. In southern China, people don't eat dumplings during the Spring Festival, but eat spring rolls and sesame rice balls.