To Vegetables, With Love

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In Cantonese, nian gao means ‘year cake’ but gao is also the word for ‘high’. For this reason, the sweet treat is deemed as a ‘lucky’ food during Lunar New Year celebrations, symbolizing ‘higher’ position, growth and prosperity.

But what does this mean exactly? What is the luck for?

Chinese people are very superstitious. Central to Lunar New Year celebrations is the idea of a fresh start, sweeping away the old, negative energy and welcoming the good health, fortune and happiness for the new moon cycle. In a practical sense, this means a long list of musts and must nots to do during the 15-day festival. The colour red is often worn and used in décor to symbolize both joy and protection against evil, cleaning homes before the new year to sweep away back luck (but do not do this on new year’s day because you will sweep away the auspiciousness of the new year), no washing hair on new year’s day due to the same reason (my least favourite custom and a literal source of conflict when I was a teen), giving lei see (red packets with money, called hong bao in Mandarin) to transfer prosperity to others.

This chase for prosperity extends to foods of course. Long life noodles, wealth-inducing dumplings (their shape resembles ancient Chinese silver and gold ingots which were a form of currency), gold-hued oranges, tangerines and spring rolls, head to tail steamed fish signifying abundance. Every bite is a taste of good fortune.

There was always nian gao on my mother’s table of new year offerings, alongside candied coconut, white and black sesame bars, haw flakes, almond cookies, “ear” biscuits (baked snacks that look like cow ears) and egg rolls. My mother rarely dabbled in sweets so our nian gao was usually store bought. The traditional version is made of brown rock sugar and steamed, often with decorative red dates in the centre. Often she would panfry slices until they become irresistibly stretchy, and crispy around the edges. They can also be dipped in egg before pan-frying, akin to French toast.

Happy year of the Fire Horse.

Recipe © Hetty Lui McKinnon for To Vegetables, With Love. No part of this recipe can be reproduced without the written permission of the author.

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