The Cantonese New Year Food Items And Their Meanings


Want to discover what food they eat in China during New Year’s celebrations? Find out what is on the menu during the Chinese New Year season.

Food and feeding habits are of great importance to the people of China. This characteristic is seen during the festive time of New Years season when the palates and the feasting hold a central position in the celebrations. This is however not a very surprising notion or sight because the Chinese people do give much prominence to food.

The serving of exceptional food that is considered lucky for a time period of two weeks with entering into the New Year and is known as the Festival of Spring or Spring Festival. The reason behind this being that the lunar calendar states that the New Year Season occurs during the spring season and the food served is not at all commonplace.

There is symbolism in everything when it comes to China hence New Year’s cuisine is no exception. A full chicken for example is a classic Chinese New Year item that symbolizes family togetherness. Then there are other traditional food items that are served during this time of the year because of the symbolism that they have.

The serving of noodles has been an age old practice during the New Year season. The noodles are believed to be a symbol for long life. The Chinese make use of uncut noodles because the traditional belief says that cutting the noodles brings bad luck.

Clams and spring rolls are other food items that are offered during this New Year festival. They are quite delicious with a moith watering taste and also they symbolize prosperity. The clams derive their symbolism from their bouillon structure and spring rolls derive it from their gold bar shape.

There is also a scientific approach to the choice of food that is selected to be a fortune food to be served during the New Year’s season and this depends on the way the particular food sounds. For example lettuce when pronounced in the Chinese lingo sounds like increasing fortune. Hence all lucky food is generally covered in lettuce leaves while being served during the New Years.

Amongst the extremely prominent symbolic food items are a couple of fruits that can be seen in abundant quantity during the New Year season. Foremost amongst them are oranges and tangerines. The reason why they are considered to be symbolic New Year food items is because they sound like wealth and luck. The grape fruit is another item that symbolizes abundance and is taken as a symbolic fruit for the New Year.

Prettyextraordinarily, fish is related to wish as it sounds to the Chinese and it is one of the central food items served during the occasion of New Year. Chinese supper during the Eve of New Year always concludes with the eating of a whole fish as it symbolizes abundance and togetherness.

Then there is a spectrum of sweet and steamed cakes such as the sticky rice cake and other sweet treats meant to symbolize all the good things that one can and should expect from the year to come.

The Chinese zodiac is an important part of the celebrations. If you are interested in reading more about Chinese new year food click on the hyperlinks.