Chinese New Year or more popularly recognized as Lunar new year or Spring festival is an important festival amongst the Chinese population worldwide. As everyone knows, Lunar New Year is a colorful celebration of a number of customs, cultural activities, and festive foods. If there is one thing that makes Chinese New Year magnificent it is snacks; their crispiness embodies great taste and colour that cannot be rivalled by any other snacks during festivities.
Truly Lunar New Year snacks not only refer to yummy delicacies to tickle the taste buds but are miniature mouthful messages of prosperity and good luck that are wished to be conferred to anyone who partakes of any of the treats. In this article, let me share with you 10 sweet Chinese New Year Snacks which I thought really symbolize the happiness we have in this season and also represent their corresponding regions or auspicious meanings.
1. Nian Gao (Sticky Rice Cake)
Nian Gao, or also called year cake or sticky rice cake is popular sweet cake during Chinese New Year. This cake is made from glutinous rice flour and packed with all sorts of sweet things and steamed until it is soft and gummy and sweet. For example, Nian Gao, which means ‘year cake’ in Chinese is more than just confection because the Chinese words that form the name of the food-breed together, stand for ‘high year,’ which means that one’s position, or height, is set to rise in the one-year-cycle that lies ahead.
2. Pineapple Tarts
It has its roots in Malaysia and is now considered to be a traditional Chinese New Year snack all over South Eastern Asia. Fried to a golden brown these are delightful little pastries that consist of pineapples preserve that has a slightly tangy taste. Pineapple tarts are baked to resemble the skin of a pineapple and thus its colour is copper or golden which symbolises prosperity and wealth On the other hand the form of the pastry resembles hangs which symbolise brightness of one’s future.
3. Love Letters (Kuih Kapit)
Love Letters or Kuih Kapit is a crisp, thin cookie prepared from flour, sugar and coconut milk. These crispy thin biscuits are attributed to love letters because of their thin appearance. Both are consumed as snack products during the Lunar New Year festivities in Malaysia and Singapore. Love Letters symbolizes solidity and durability of most of the relationships represented by the slivers.
4. Almond Cookies
Almond cookies are one of the easiest Chinese New Year snacks which can be prepare in every Chinese home during the festivals. These cookies are prepared from ground almonds, sugar and flour which give a crispy outside layer and a rich buttery inside. By the same token, almond cookies are really suitable to be given as gifts since almonds are often associated with health, particularly wisdom in Chinese culture since ancient times.
5. Tang Yuan (Sweet Rice Balls)
Tang Yuan, this food can also be termed as rice balls or meat balls, are Chinese dessert that is made from glutinous rice flour and contain various stuf fillings. The sweet version is generally stuffed with black sesame filling or red bean paste or peanut paste. Tang Yuan is famous and accumulated during the occasion of the lantern festival, which is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the lunar new year. Tang Yuan was round shaped in order to signify reunion and wholeness illustrating the love and togetherness of family.
6. Peanut Cookies
The other common treat found during Lunar New Year is peanut cookies. These delicious cookies are made from ground peanuts and sugar with additional flour added to hold the cookies together; the flavor is both sweet and savory. This legume is actually respected by Chinese people since its Mandarin pronunciation in Chinese is resemble English of the word ‘flourishing’ or ‘prosperity’. Peanut cookies mean that there will be plenty of harvest and joviality next year.
7. Glutinous Rice Dumplings
Sticky rice balls can be consumed during Lunar New Year, and there are different types of the dish in every region. The most typical one is the one stuffed with pork belly, mushrooms, and peanuts. The dumplings are neatly wrapped in a bamboo/leaves and carefully steamed to taste best. The shape of the dumpling is cylindrical which is symbolic of prosperity and prosperity or bring happiness.
8. Wong Kok Bao (Butterfly Bun)
Continental in origin, the Wong Kok Bao sometimes called the ‘Butterfly Bun’ originated in Hong Kong; the pastry is made with layers of flaky dough filled with a buttery rich custard sweetener. The shape of the bun that has been designed represents a butterfly wing which gives the nuance of elegance of a butterfly. The crispy pastry and smooth buttery filling make Wong Kok Bao perhaps one of the most delightful desserts to look forward during the Lunar New Year period.
9. Fortune Cookies
To this day, those rectangular, golden fortunes have become a symbol of Chinese New Year, despite the fact that they have been introduced in the USA only. These are thin cookies made of flour, sugar and sesame oil to which they are given a small paper containing a fortune. Lunar New Year is still celebrated by many Western Chinese restaurants, where fortune cookies are characteristic snacks associated with fortunate and a hope for the following year.
10. Osmanthus Cake
Osmanthus Cake is a very traditional Chinese New Year’s treat, especially in perhaps Hong Kong and Taiwan. Osmanthus honey and glutinous rice flour are used to prepare the cake and other sweet ingredients as required. The Osmanthus Cake is a prosperity cake, and the bright gold colour of osmanthus flowers represents happiness and good fortune.
Therefore, CNY goodies are not only delicious foods but actually an important component of the Lunar New Year that reunite families and friends, convey good intentions and reflect the variety of the Chinese regional cooking. From the crispy and tasty almond cookies to the tender and indulgent Wong Kok Bao each of these ten tasty bites contains the happiness of Lunar New Year. Thus, when the time of the Lunar New Year comes, you should take some of these traditional Chinese snacks and enjoy the happiness that is associated with them.