When it comes to naming New Year specialities--"Gold Ingots Rolling In," "Wealth, Nobility, and Prosperity"--Taiwanese people are usually quite happy to let hope triumph over experience.
George Bernard Shaw once remarked that "a perpetual holiday is a good working definition of hell." The celebrated playwright did not actually say that he had indigestion in mind, but he might well have done, given the way we indulge our appetite for rich food and drink during any protracted holiday season. In a society like Taiwan's, which is blessed with modern farming methods and a plethora of supermarkets, people are much more likely to suffer from an excess of food than its lack.
In former times, however, when Taiwan was an almost exclusively agricultural society, the holiday meant a far-from -hellish time to relax after twelve months of solid grind. People whose lives were tied to the land and the weather naturally hoped and prayed for good harvests in the year to come, but they often bought delicacies too, as a way of satisfying the inner man and woman before the hardships nature loved to impose once more came to dominate their lives.
Food is naturally a powerful symbol of life and energy, which explains why, according to local tradition, a basket of goodies must be placed in the center of the living room to guarantee there will be enough to eat during the coming year. Most of the treats enjoyed at the holiday season had their origins in ceremonies for worshipping gods and ancestors, and were always seasonal. In an era of round-the-clock supermarkets and improved cultivation methods, however, dishes that used to be served only during festivals are now commonplace all year long.
That said, shopping for New Year fare is still one of the holiday's most characteristic activities, very different from a workaday trip to the local food store. Taipei's Tihua Street, situated in an older part of town and still renowned for its foodstuffs, becomes a colorful and bustling place at this time of year. Nanmen traditional market is another of Taipei's festive shopping sites, especially during the weekend before the holiday. Comestibles such as dried shrimp, sea cucumber, and squid are some of the most popular items. It is also a good place to pick up presents for the family, because yet another similarity between Christmas and the lunar New Year is that both are gift-giving festivals.
The Taiwanese think much and do no less about eating, and their island's history offers clues to the ready availability of so much food. Millions of mainland settlers drawn from all parts of China settled in Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek in 1949 --Taipei was once nicknamed "Little Mainland China," because most of its streets and roads were named after mainland provinces and cities by Chiang's Nationalist government--and it is only natural that they and their descendants should look back with nostalgia on their distinctive regional cuisines.
As a result, numerous mainland delicacies as well as those with island origins can be seen everywhere and are widely enjoyed. New Year cakes (described simply as "year cakes," nian kao in Mandarin), mostly made of rice flour, are a good example of regionally based cooking, because there are so many varieties to choose from. Fujian, Hakka, Ningpo, Cantonese, the pillow-shaped Sichuan variety, and cassia-flavored cakes from Suzhou are all to be found on and around Taiwan's streets during the run-up to New Year.
In traditional households, great importance is placed on how much the top of the fa kao (a sweeter type of year cake that resembles a popover) splits open when it is steamed, for the wider the crack--so the reasoning goes--the better the fortune of the household in the year to come. Taboos are also associated with the cake, and menstruating women, those in mourning, and naughty children are barred from the kitchen while it is being made. In olden days, the whole family would wait and watch over the steamer in the hope that the cake's top would promise a prosperous year.
Such leisurely activities are rarely seen in the hustle and bustle of modern Taiwan. Most families no longer put that much of an effort into preparing special foods for lunar New Year and simply purchase ready-made year cakes. Although there is a huge range to choose from, something has been lost now that they are seldom made at home. In the past, housewives would take a sackful of glutinous rice, an important ingredient in many Chinese desserts, to an electric mill in the neighborhood. Afterwards they would hang the cloth bag of ground rice outdoors to dry, with the smell that permeated the air reminding everyone that lunar New Year was right around the corner. Alas, this type of olfactory clue is no longer part of the splendor of the festival.
Like the year cakes, la wei (wind-dried meat), another popular New Year delicacy, is also characterized by differing regional varieties. The Cantonese are known for dried meats, dried sausages, and liver sausages. Hunan has its own type of dried meat, and there are also delicacies like Jinhua's honey-cured ham. Native Taiwanese la wei include sausages, smoked pig's liver, and stewed fatty meat. But less rich foods like mustard spinach (which can be cooked for a long time without losing shape), cabbage, and other vegetables are indispensable to New Year symbolism. In modern Taiwan, where nutritional requirements are more often exceeded than not, "diet" New Year food has become a recent trend and, despite the slightly off -putting name, is achieving unexpectedly widespread popularity.
Dinners served on lunar New Year's Eve are especially lavish, with every dish oozing lucky connotations. The meal is even supposed to serve two separate purposes for the mouth: to give it good food and allow it to speak well. The significance of year cakes (nian kao) is that they are a pun on the words "rising higher with each New Year" ( nian nian kao sheng), because the Chinese word for "cake" is a homophone for the highly pleasing word "high." Sound-alikes play an important role in the presentation of New Year's food. An example is the tsai tao gui (in the Taiwanese dialect, turnip cake) in which tsai tao (the turnip) is a homophone for good luck.
The center of the table is usually graced with a hot plate supporting a huo kuo, or hot pot, full of soup flavored with cabbage, meat, fish, and an assortment of other ingredients. The adults make the meal more jovial by toasting each other with small glasses of local varieties of sake or Chinese shao hsing, a type of liquor not to be confused with mi chiu rice wine, which is mainly used in cooking. Since it is always cold around New Year, chicken braised in body-warming mi chiu becomes popular, often prompting imports to replenish local supplies, and long lines in understocked stores. Mi chiu, sold in small, undistinguished brown bottles, is sometimes drunk mixed with fruit juice by military conscripts having deep thirsts and shallow pockets, but it is not really a cocktail staple to be recommended to any save the desperate.
Every dish consumed on this highly symbolical occasion has its own special significance. For example, mustard spin ach, also called the "longevity plant" because of its long stems and leaves, is cooked whole and must be eaten from top to bottom. It cannot be cut into pieces, for it represents longevity and continuity within the family.
Fish balls, meat balls, and prawn balls are also served on New Year's Eve, their round shapes being symbolic of family ties. Chinese chives are eaten because their name chiu tsai is a homophone for chiu, meaning "a long time." The words "whole chicken" uttered in Taiwanese mean "the whole family." Fish, yu, represents "having enough to spare." People from northern China usually serve dumplings (with lucky coins in them), shaped like gold nuggets. Mandarin oranges, chu tzu, are also considered indicative of luck and wealth. Chicken ( chi) cooked with chestnut (li) represents good fortune ( chi li). The hair plant (a kind of seaweed) called fa tsai stands for "earn big money," pronounced the same but with a different intonation.
Despite the family connotations of New Year's Eve, not everyone stays home for the celebrations. "People are very busy today, and many of them have to work even on New Year's Eve," says Grace Liu, a manager in the Food and Beverage Division of Taipei's Grand Hotel. "If they can't prepare a feast but still want to have something special for New Year's Eve, then they rely on experienced chefs." She notes that when a large family gathers in a restaurant, the sense of bonding so cherished during the lunar New Year festival quickly manifests itself, despite the venue. Liu likes to think that the highly stylized traditional Chinese motif of the Grand Hotel helps foster that sense of togetherness.
At this time of year, the hotel's menu reads like a roll call of lucky names and extravagant blessings. "Congratulations on Your Wealth" is a dish consisting of hair plant and dried scallops. "It takes a lot of work to clean the hair plant," Liu sighs. "But its pronunciation is almost identical with that of 'wealth,' and the Taiwanese love that wonderful image." "New Year's Greetings for Newborns" is made with mushrooms and fresh scallops, hsien tai tzu, a phrase that sounds like "Bringing the Babies."
"Having More Than Enough with a Smile" contains Jinhua honey-cured ham and fish ("having fish" is a homophone of "having more than enough" in Mandarin). Pieces of bean curd shaped like gold ingots (long ago used as money) in boiling soup means "Gold Ingots Rolling In." The hors d'oeuvres, comprising five cold dishes, are known as "Five Blessings for the New Year"--longevity, wealth, peace, righteousness, and wisdom. Other lucky dishes include "Good News for the New Spring," "Wealth, Nobility, and Prosperity," and "An Affectionate Couple Sends Best Wishes for the Spring."
But nowadays it is not just the big hotels that open for business during holiday time. "In modern, busy life, especially during New Year, fewer and fewer people want to go to the trouble of buying expensive ingredients, knowing that the refrigerator's going to be stuffed with leftovers," says Su Hui-hsia, who works at a fifty-year-old restaurant in northern Taipei's Peitou district. Her establishment, which will be open during the holiday except on New Year's Eve, has seen a moderate increase in festival business over the past few years. More often than not, customers place take-out orders, the most popular being Sweet and Sour Fish and Savory Crispy Duck, two dishes that convey a sense of abundance and fertility. The second day of the New Year, when married daughters return to their parental homes laden with gifts, is also a busy time for the restaurant, as is the third day.
Many members of the older generation look back with nostalgia on an era when the New Year holiday somehow seemed "bigger" than it is today. Perhaps it is for that reason that die-hard enthusiasts buy New Year cakes all year round, not necessarily for offering to gods or ancestors, but simply as a way of recalling the good old days to mind through the taste buds, an oriental variation on Proust's madeleines in Remembrance of Times Past. What seems certain is that the New Year festival will be celebrated for as long as there are Chinese to celebrate it--and food will always play a major role.