New year's institutions.

Happy new year!!

Chinese, that is. Yesterday marked the beginning of the year of the dragon. Having been born in the United States, my grasp of Chinese history, culture, and chopsticks are all pretty bad. My Cantonese is also quite rusty (it started out looking promising as a child, quickly declined as soon as I started school, and is now getting better but still mostly limited to household phrases such as, "Go brush your teeth")...all not for lack of trying on my parents' part. Yes, most of my friends would classify me as a Twinkie.

The part of me that feels the most Chinese is, of course, in food and cooking. In his book, In Defense of Food, Michael Pollan states, "The last place to look for signs of assimilation in an immigrant's home is the pantry." While faithful blog followers will note that most of my culinary adventures are of a more Continental variety, my comfort food is undoubtedly more closely linked to my heritage: chewy noodles, hot dumplings, and cozy soups. On Chinese New Year, I go all-out, observing some fairly sacred traditions:

Food Traditions:

• Crisp, fried golden spring rolls symbolize gold bars of good fortune for the year
• Dumplings are yet another symbol of wealth and prosperity (traditionally shaped as coins)
• Long noodles represent longevity
• Fresh fruit symbolizes new beginnings
• Rice cakes (nian gao) are a homophone for "every year higher/a promotion" (and rice represents all kinds of good things)
• Vegetables (choy) are a homophone for "wealth" and "prosperity," also symbolizing harmony
• Fish (yu) is a homophone for "surplus"

Non-Food Traditions:

• Cleaning your WHOLE house (every corner) -- this must be done BEFORE the new year (because vacuuming on or after new year's day is just vacuuming up all the good luck, silly).
• Settling all your debts (it's not very auspicious to enter the new year owing someone money) 
• Wearing red
• Wearing new clothes
• (For married couples) Giving red envelopes of money to non-married family members

Over the years I have let go of some of the traditions (in my college dorm, for example, it wasn't practical to deep fry spring rolls), but some of them I try pretty hard to keep (that same year in college, I tracked down some instant ramen noodles and in the absence of fresh fish, Shark Bites and Goldfish crackers did just fine).

While in Boston last weekend, I celebrated Chinese New Year a day early with my sister, who so kindly opened up her kitchen for the cause. We cooked an enormous feast including the fairly mandatory spring rolls, nian gao, long noodles in soup with fresh vegetables, and fried pork dumplings. (On the actual day, I steamed myself some fish in traditional ginger, green onions, and soy sauce, and gorged myself on fresh fruit.)

Of course, as delicious and satisfying as the food itself is, there's something wonderful and comforting about fulfilling tradition.

~

Spring rolls (chicken, shiitake mushroom, carrot; deep fried golden and crispy):

Dumplings (pork, ginger, green onions, celery cabbage, garlic, and white pepper; pan fried and steamed, finished with sesame oil):

The process: