Auspiciousness of Food at Chinese New Year

In Chinese culture, food is given a lot of importance and plays a vital role during the Chinese New Year (CNY) season.

Richard Poi, Oze Travel Representation

From the food prepared on the CNY Reunion Dinner through to the fifteenth day of the CNY celebrations (Chap Goh Meh), "lucky" foods are served throughout the two week celebration. Examples are noodles representing a long life (never cut them for obvious reason!); Spring Rolls symbolising wealth because of their shape being similar to gold bars; Clams resembling the bullion.

Foods may have special significance because of the way the Chinese word for it sounds. For example, the Cantonese word for lettuce sounds like rising fortune; Tangerines and oranges sound like luck and wealth, respectively.

There are other auspicious sounding ingredients that "add luck" to the dish (and to the person who consumes it!), like shitake mushrooms, abalone, roast pork with crackling intact, and black hair-like moss (cyanobacterium, in dried form but expands when wet) known as 'fatt choy' in Chinese which sounds like "expanding wealth". 

Fish also plays a large role in festive celebrations because the word, fish, being "yu," sounds like the words both for wish and abundance. This explains why the raw fish salad is a popular front runner dish at some CNY banquets (especially in Malaysia and Singapore) because it encourages diners to pick up their chopsticks and mix all the ingredients of the dish together - the significance of collaboration in the pursuit of wealth and prosperity.

Isn't "Yu Sang" a relevant dish to have for networkers?

Richard Poi is also a Sydney-based Lecturer at Western Sydney University.