The Lunar New Year, celebrated as the Chinese New Year is a great opportunity to learn about Chinese culture as you recreate the experience of a Chinese family celebrating the holiday and creating an environment conducive to good luck, happiness and prosperity in the new year. As awareness of Chinese culture increases in the U.S., many of the items used in a Chinese New Year celebration are available locally across the country.
If there’s not a festival near you, or if you want to have a small festival of your own, here are a few tips, and a simple recipe. Rhonda Parkinson at About.com talks about the symbolic significance of Chinese New Year foods, and there are a couple that you can order at your local Chinese restaurant. Spring Rolls, which look like bars of gold, are a delicious tradition, and Sweet and Sour Pork she says contains a Chinese word that sounds like grandchildren, so many Chinese enjoy it for new year”s. Buddha’s Delight is a popular dish at many Chinese restaurants, a vegetarian feast which traditionally is eaten on New Year’s Day, symbolic of purity and kindness to living creatures. Another Chinese New Year food eaten at the stroke of midnight is dumplings, which recall Chinese money of the past. Sometimes a gold coin is hidden in one, but warn your guests to be careful biting down! You might want to practice ahead to make these dishes yourself, and you can find recipes at the Food Network site.
If you want to do some simple Chinese cooking with the kids, here’s a simple recipe. You can use a wok or similar pan, or cook the ingredients separately, but make sure to cook everything together in the end for best flavor. First, cook a cup of brown or long-grain white rice as directed, but don’t add salt or butter, and at the same time cook and dice some chicken breast, and soak it in teriyaki sauce in the refrigerator. Defrost some vegetable medley (peas, carrots, corn) and mix with the rice. Scramble two or three eggs. Combine them all, mix in a large pan over heat and add more teriyaki sauce, not enough to make the rice soggy. It’s a treat that tastes even better the next day!
A happy and prosperous New Year!
“Chinese New Year Food – Symbolic Recipes”, Rhonda Parkinson, http://chinesefood.about.com/od/chinesenewyear/a/symbolicnewyear.htm
“Chinese New Year Recipes, Menus, Foods”, http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/et_hd_chinese_new_year/0,1972,FOOD_9831,00.html
