Typical CNY dishes

CNY is always one of my most favorite festival. It's already the 4th day of Chinese New Year. Having one week of holidays for CNY is definitely not enough! Too many relatives to meet up with, too many outings with friends and most importantly, too much food to eat! I'm going blog about some common CNY dishes. For Chinese, I believe these dishes are not something new because we have them every year! For non-Chinese, it's a good exposure on our festival dishes and you can even try on them in any Chinese restaurant, especially during CNY, if interested :)

The most famous CNY symbolic dish is Yuseheng or also known as Prosperity Toss. It is actually a Teochew-style raw fish salad. It is a mixture of shredded vegetables with different sauces. Yusheng in Chinese is raw fish. 'Fish' in Chinese is conflated with its homophone 'abundance'. Therefore, Yusheng is a symbolic dish for abundance and prosperity.

The first dish served for CNY meal is usually Yusheng and this is followed by shark fin soup. This is a popular soup among Chinese cuisine and is served at special occasions, not only for CNY. The shark fins provides the uniqueness of texture in the soup. This soup was originated from the Ming Dynasty. Since the welfare of sharks is being taken care of, other ingredients are used to replace shark fin.

Jiaozi or Chinese dumpling is common among CNY dishes as well. Since the shape of the dumpling resembles the shape of gold, it symbolizes wealth and prosperity.

Nian Gao or Sticky Cake is popular, too.  According to tradition and belief, this steamed fruitcake is fed to the God of Stove so that he will report favorably on a family's conduct throughout the year when he returns to the heaven before new year.

Yusheng (Prosperity Toss)

Shark fin soup


Jiaozi (Dumpling)


Nian Gao (Sticky Cake)

You might be thinking how these traditional food inspire me. Food is one of the element in a culture. Besides a necessity, food is a study. It is definitely a knowledge that requires much application and creativity. Imagine having little to no advancement of technology, with bare hand, our ancestors created so much nice dishes that are passed from one generation to another. Don't we need to show our appreciation to our ancestors? And I guess the best way is to understand the origin of these traditional food, learn the recipes and pass them down to our next generation. In this way, we won't afraid the extinction of this beautiful Chinese culture.