Amazing Recipes You Can Make for Chinese New Year, a great selection of appetizers, mains, and desserts plus a few dim sum recipes for you to enjoy!
I thought I would take this opportunity to write a few words about this wonderful celebration which nowadays takes place wherever there are Chinese people!
There's so much history, legend, myths, memories, and even recipes, all relating to the subject, you could write volumes on the topic, alas, we will cover some interesting stuff and give you a whistlestop tour of the hows, whys, and whens of Chinese New Year.
You may already know that the Chinese place a lot of 'meanings' to almost everything in life, and of course Chinese New Year is no exception. Let's start with the origins of this celebration;
According to Chinese legend and myth, Chinese New Year began with a battle against a mythical beast, known as Nian.
Nian would come on the first day of Chinese New Year and pretty much cause devastation, eating crops, livestock, villagers, and in particular, children. So, to protect themselves, all the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the start of the New Year in a bid to feed the Nian, and stop it from eating everything else, such as the villagers.
It was also deduced that the Nian was afraid of the color red, as on occasion, the children were playing outside, wearing red clothing and the Nian was scared off upon seeing the colors. After that realization, the villagers decided to hang red lanterns and red scrolls from their doors and windows, and for extra scare tactics, they started fireworks (surprisingly, most even today are also red in color!) with loud bangs to scare off Nian. Suffice to say, Nian never visited the village again.
Part of a Chinese dinner!
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