On New Year’s Eve, we had a reunion dinner, enjoyed family affection and read mulberry. Every Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan compatriot and overseas Chinese has his own "New Year’s Eve story".
Pot dishes that mean "pots are full"
White-cut chicken "starting from eating chicken and reuniting the whole family"
Bless the long-term dish of "long life"
Qingtian sugar cake with fragrant lips and teeth
A basin full of "auspicious dishes"
The real taste is reunion.
Our reporter Chen Ran
Deep-fried goo-goo meat, hung with sweet and sour thick juice made of sugar and vinegar, and presented with colored pepper and pineapple pieces; Pinch the good tiger spots out of the pot with a stopwatch, pour steamed fish and soy sauce, and then pour a thin layer of ginger and onion hot oil …
Every New Year’s Eve, Mrs. Xie’s kitchen is full of fragrance, wrapped in a strong flavor of the year.
"In a year, my favorite meal is New Year’s Eve. Although it is harder than usual, it is the happiest thing to make your family satisfied and happy. " Mrs. Xie, who lives in Chai Wan on Hong Kong Island, and Mr. Sheng have two sons. Today, sons have grown up and left home to study and work hard. Therefore, the Spring Festival has become one of the few reunion moments for Xie Jia every year. A week before New Year’s Eve, Xie Jia had already begun to prepare for the New Year’s Eve dinner.
Speaking of New Year’s Eve dishes, Mrs Xie is always in high spirits. "The eldest son loves to eat cows. I bought the freshest oxtail early, stewed it with lobster sauce and bean paste, stewed it until it was soft and rotten, and the bovine bone marrow was also dissolved in the soup. Every bite was rich in gum and sauce. Shrimp is my husband’s favorite. In the New Year’s Eve dinner, Aauto Quicker’s braised black tiger shrimp is served, which is fried first and then stewed. The red color is festive and appetizing. My youngest son likes steamed ribs that are soft and waxy. This time, I put a layer of tender tofu under the marinated ribs and put them into the pot. Gravy and hot tofu are estimated to make him eat a big bowl of rice … "
Mrs Xie smiles brightly. A hearty and delicious New Year’s Eve dinner is full of love for your family.
Hong Kong-style New Year’s Eve dinner pays attention to "good luck", so every family must have several kinds of "auspicious dishes" on the table, "fish every year", pig’s hand symbolizing "windfall" and "round and round" mushrooms … In Tangfang Village, Pingshan, Yuen Long, New Territories, a pot dish feast meaning "full of pots" has been circulated for generations. Pingshan traditional basin restaurant started with this ancient "Hong Kong flavor". Deng Lianxing, a descendant of the third generation, introduced that the traditional potted vegetables are burned with firewood, which has a unique fireworks fragrance for a long time.
A seemingly simple pot dish is actually full of flavors. The ingredients include prawns, oysters, squid, pigskin, mushrooms, chicken, herring balls, pork, radish, bamboo shoots and Nostoc flagelliforme. Roast, stew, roast, stir-fry, marinate, stir-fry … All kinds of ingredients are self-contained, and then stacked layer by layer according to a specific order, and different flavors absorb and infiltrate each other, making people feel more delicious as they eat.
The New Year’s Eve dinner should be delicious, as the classic TV series in Hong Kong says, "The most important thing for a family is to be neat." In the laughter, the whole family sits around the table, which is the true taste of New Year’s Eve.
Mama home-cooked dish
Memories of the taste of the year
Our reporter Suning
In the small town of Haojiang, the end of the twelfth lunar month is getting stronger and stronger, and people are happily preparing for the New Year. "At the end of the day, business people will feast their buddies and give out year-end bonuses." Li Baohua, who works as a civil servant in the Macao SAR government, said that the 28th of the year is a day to wash dirty clothes, and families should clean their houses to get rid of the old and welcome the new.
New Year’s Eve is the climax of the year. "When my grandmother was alive, she always adhered to traditional customs." Li Baohua recalled that the old lady got up early in the morning every New Year’s Eve, prepared a table of small dishes to worship in front of the ancestral memorial tablet, and prayed for a smooth coming year. Then go straight to the vegetable market to prepare a reunion dinner, that is, New Year’s Eve.
In Li Baohua’s impression, the 30-year-old vegetable market has always been a sea of people. People should not only choose the freshest ingredients for the evening reunion dinner, but also prepare "year-pressing" things. According to the traditional custom, lettuce, celery and onion with roots should be tied with red rope and attached with red paper. A shad, can’t scale, can’t laparotomy, complete a tail. Some people have to put a whole white-cut chicken, and all the ingredients, together with oranges with leaves, will be stored from the 30 th of the year to the second day of the New Year’s Day, in order to have a head and a tail and have more than one year.
Reunion is the eternal theme of New Year’s Eve. When the sun sets on the western hills, the whole family sits neatly around a table. And almost every dish on this table has its meaning.
"Every family celebrates the New Year’s Eve with lettuce by the fire. Full of yellow sand makes a big cockroach, and the firecrackers ring in the sky. " Baohua Li said that the last flower-exploring Shang Yanliu mentioned the word "Xian" in his poem "Yueyuan Old Calendar Folk Bamboo Branch Ci", which is homophonic with "Xian" in Cantonese, implying that Xian is rich in years. However, yellow sand clams are rarely seen in today’s reunion dinner, but pork tongue and oyster sauce are indispensable. People in Guangfu call the pig’s tongue "pig’s tongue", and "pig’s tongue" and "profit" are homonyms. People from businessmen to wage earners have a special liking for this dish. There are chicken, boiled chicken, fried chicken with soy sauce, ginger and onion chicken … No matter how to make it, a chicken is indispensable for the reunion dinner.
For Li Baohua, the best reunion dinner must be mom’s home-cooked meal. What I miss all my life is also the figure of my mother in the taste of the year. "My memory of the taste of the year began with my mother’s soy chicken in the reunion dinner." Li Baohua said that her chicken with soy sauce was not soaked, but fried. Heat a red pot, put down the oil and chunks of ginger, fry the chicken until fragrant, pour the adjusted soy sauce, and cook slowly with slow fire. The skin is fragrant and the meat is lazy, and the thick juice is heavy.
All kinds of special flavors
Behind is hometown.
Our reporter Wang Yao
In Taiwan Province, from the first half of the year, the news of sweeping New Year’s Eve and the advertisement of New Year’s Eve at the door of the store repeatedly released the message that "Chinese New Year is coming soon", which made people involuntarily look forward to the "big meal" on New Year’s Eve.
Mr. and Mrs. Zheng Shijie, who are in their forties, live in Taipei. "On New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Eve, I usually go to my husband’s house to eat, and I will go back to my mother’s house on the second day." Mrs. Zheng, who is usually in charge of cooking, said that she was very relaxed on New Year’s Eve. "The kitchen on New Year’s Eve is the home of her mother-in-law, and no one else can get involved."
When Mr. Zheng was young, he lived in the family village (a house built for the soldiers who moved to Taiwan and their families). The whole family village was like a big family. "At that time, every family really didn’t lock the door." Adults were colleagues and children were classmates, taking care of each other, regardless of each other; Whoever cooks something delicious will share it with everyone. As soon as possible, the residents of the village come from all over the mainland. Over time, each family’s diet has all kinds of distinctive flavors, and so does the New Year’s Eve. Mr. Zheng’s grandfather came from Jiangxi and his grandfather came from Hubei. "When we were young, we ate New Year’s Eve at grandma’s house and later at mom’s house, but there was no obvious regional characteristics."
Although many families now go to restaurants for dinner to save trouble, Mr. Zheng’s mother still insists on cooking by herself. Ten days before the Chinese New Year, I began to buy ingredients and reserve new year’s goods.
On the dinner table of the New Year’s Eve, there are bacon sausages and pot-stewed vegetables made by ourselves. "There are also stewed lion’s head, shredded pork with fish sauce, shrimp, and of course, fish is indispensable, because there is more than one year, and you can’t finish it on New Year’s Eve. Only when there is surplus will you have more than one year." There must also be jiaozi, which contains coins. Whoever eats it represents better luck. " Mr. Zheng said.
"Some families in Taiwan Province eat hot pot on New Year’s Eve, which has a surrounding atmosphere. Pay attention to a little, but also have a Buddha jumping wall. " Mrs. Zheng said. "When we were young, we all went to my grandmother’s house in Tainan for dinner. My grandmother was chaozhou people. The dinner would make chicken rolls, stewed whole ducks, radish cakes, and’ long-year dishes’ that Taiwan Province must eat around the stove. Because it is not easy to boil, it symbolizes a long life. You can’t cut it off when you eat it, but eat it whole leaves."
Sugar cakes stay fragrant for a long time.
Nourish the wandering heart
Our reporter Cheng Long
As the year is approaching, in a small mountain village in Qingtian, Zhejiang, every household is busy: washing lotus leaves, grinding rice noodles, mixing stuffing and steaming sugar cakes. This is the happiest memory of Wang Xinte, an overseas Chinese living in Spain: every New Year, he can eat Qingtian sugar cake, which is sweet but not greasy, soft and not sticky, and his lips and teeth remain fragrant.
"The taste of the year is the taste of Qingtian sugar cake!" Wang Xinte said, "It starts to be cooked around the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month every year, and it takes more than ten hours to steam in a cauldron. Then cut it into pieces and eat it slowly. Visit relatives and friends and bring some as a New Year gift. "
In 2000, Wang Xinte arrived in Spain, and the first year of Spring Festival was simple. "There are only seven or eight China people in the whole city, so it is very lucky to eat Chinese food, let alone eat sugar cakes." Wang Xinte said that in the past, local people knew little about the Spring Festival. "Now, the Spring Festival has become a household name."
On the first day of the first month of 2018, Wang Xinte took several overseas Chinese to Aragon TV Station to introduce the Spring Festival in China by live broadcast. "We specially prepared two kinds of food. One is jiaozi, and the other is sugar cake. The audience and the host were full of praise for China cuisine. Through delicious food, Spanish friends have a deeper understanding of China and Qingtian. This has also created a more friendly atmosphere for our overseas Chinese to live and develop in the local area. "
Wang Xinte also moved the New Year’s Eve dinner to Spain. "This year, we will invite people from all walks of life in Spain to attend the Spring Festival dinner, and invite them to taste the special New Year’s Eve dinner in China and experience the customs of worshipping the New Year and giving lucky money." Wang Xinte, who is now the president of Spain’s Spain-China Friendship and Cooperation Association, hopes to take the New Year’s Eve dinner as a brand activity to promote Chinese culture and run it in Spain for a long time.
The charm of Chinese culture is getting bigger and bigger, and the China Year around the world is getting more and more prosperous. "Now many supermarkets in Spain are selling sugar cakes, and there are more and more patterns." Wang Xinte said, "My children were born and raised in Spain. They don’t have the Spring Festival experience as I did when I was a child, but I hope they can learn about the Spring Festival through these activities and never forget their roots."
