Chinese Culture > Chinese New Year > Chinese New Year Food
Probably more food is consumed during the Chinese New Year celebrations than any other time of the year. Vast amounts of traditional food is prepared for family and friends, as well as those close to us who have died.
On New Year’s Day, the Chinese family will eat a vegetarian dish called jai. Although the various ingredients in jai are root vegetables or fibrous vegetables, many people attribute various superstitious aspects to them:
- Lotus seed - Chinese food signifies having many male offspring
- Ginkgo nut - represents silver ingots
- Black moss seaweed - is a homonym for exceeding in wealth
- Dried bean curd is another homonym for fulfillment of wealth and happiness
- Bamboo shoots - is a term which sounds like "wishing that everything would be well"
- Fresh bean curd or tofu is not included as it is white and unlucky for New Year as the color signifies death and misfortune.
- Eggs - fertility
- Egg Rolls - wealth
- Fish served whole - prosperity
- Lychee nuts - close family ties
- Noodles - A long life
- Oranges - wealth
- Peanuts - a long life
- Tangerines - luck
Other foods include a whole fish, to represent togetherness and abundance, and a chicken for prosperity. The chicken must be presented with a head, tail and feet to symbolize completeness. Noodles should be uncut, as they represent long life. In south China, the favorite and most typical dishes were nian gao, sweet steamed glutinous rice pudding and zong zi (glutinous rice wrapped up in reed leaves), another popular delicacy. In the north, steamed-wheat bread (man tou) and small meat dumplings were the preferred food. The tremendous amount of food prepared at this time was meant to symbolize abundance and wealth for the household.
