By Hungry Rabbit
To all people who trace their roots back to China, the most important date in the Lunar calendar is Chinese New Year, also known as the Spring Festival. As in all traditional Chinese gatherings, food plays an important role as this holiday’s dinners tend to be very elaborate involving tables laden with “auspicious” foods. The significance of food symbolism is sometimes based on appearance--other times, the sound of the Chinese name carries the added meaning. Tangerines and oranges, for example, are passed out freely during Chinese New Year as the words for tangerine and orange sound like luck and wealth, respectively. Steamed cakes are very popular during the Chinese New Year season, and sticky Rice Cake has symbolic value on many levels. Their sweetness symbolizes a rich, sweet life, while the layers express rising abundance for the coming year, and the round shape signifies family reunion.During the week-long New Year celebrations, every household keeps its tables topped up with sweet and savory specialties so it can welcome family and friends with a choice of festive treats. Another prerequisite of Lunar New Year is the "tray of togetherness," a tray or special box filled with an assortment of auspicious treats. Among the more popular treats are sweetened lotus roots (embodying abundance), sweetened lotus seeds (suggesting fertility), dried melon seeds (stand for profuse earnings), and all kinds of candies, which are a source of long-term sweetness.
Walnuts are amongst the foods that have a special meaning--they represent happiness of the entire family. When friends visit, I’ll put out a bowl of walnut cookies to wish them and their families happiness in the Year of the Tiger. Interestingly, this recipe comes from another tradition. Springerle, which means ‘little jumper,’ is a type of German cookie or biscuit with an embossed design made by pressing dough into a mold. Molds are traditionally carved from wood. Their origin can be traced back to at least the 14th century in southeastern Germany and surrounding areas.
(More - and recipes - after the jump.)
