Chinese New Year was celebrated earlier this month. Every year, my family has several days, where we eat the same foods on New Years Ever, New Years day and the day after that. Every dish has it’s own meaning, translated from Chinese.

Our dinner always starts off with a soup. The broth is made a few days in advance, just because there’s so much to make prior to the new year. The broth is made from pork bone. The soup has Chinese mushrooms, pig’s stomache, dried bean curd, fat choy , (Chinese meaning: good wealth) and Chinese red dates.

Next comes a stew consisting of Chinese mushrooms, dried oysters, and fat choy on a bed of greens.

This is very traditional. My grandma used to make this and now my mom takes on her role. It’s a sweet and sour white radish dish with pork hock. My brother and two aunts love this stuff!

This is MY favourite, pan fried oysters. From translation, oyster = wealth.

Instead of duck-lettuce wraps, my mom prepared ox tongue, pork and water chestnut-lettuce wraps. She used a black bean and soy sauce marinade for the ox tongue.

Shrimp are considered lively and active.  Hopefully, we will still be alive in the new year (of course!).

Everything has a beginning and an ending. This is represented by eating chicken. Although we don’t eat the chicken’s head and butt, the symbolic representation is very meaningful for traditional Chinese people.

I can still remember dinner with my grandma, her and the rest of the family would be sat at the dining table (no, that’s different from our dinner table). We ate the same foods as shown here. I wonder what Chinese New Year would be like in 2, 5, 10 years…