Festive Food and Chinese Wine

Festive Food

Chinese New Year and Mid-autumn Festival, feature food and recipes that are rich in symbolism. Many Chinese words have the same sound but are spoken in different tones, allowing for metaphorical word play that extends to festive food.

Chinese holidays follow the lunar calendar, which means that they fall on different days every year.

Check out QTS shops for General Info.

Chinese New Year

Symbolic food plays a crucial role in celebrations throughout the lunar calendar.

Chinese New Year represents new beginnings. Fish is served at the Chinese New Year eve family reunion meal, but not eaten up completely (and the remainder is stored overnight), as the Chinese phrase "may there be surpluses every year" sounds the same as "may there be fish every year." Dumplings, whose shape echoes gold ingots, and Mandarin oranges are commonly served.

Richly flavoured cakes, called nin go, are extremely popular during this time because to the Chinese they represent success. 'Nin' in Cantonese means 'year' and 'go' means 'high', so to eat these cakes foretells of a successful year. Lotus seeds in a sweet soup, called lin chi, is also popular. It is offered to newly married couples because the name, lin chi means 'every year a son', making them popular with couples who want to have children soon.

Dragon Boat Festival

Entwined in the mythology of the Dragon Boat Festival, usually celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, is zongzi, a tasty glutinous rice dumpling. Some believe that when poet Qu Yuan committed suicide in 278 BC by jumping into a river, locals threw rice into the river as a sacrifice to their dead hero, and to nourish his spirit. In a dream, the poet revealed the fish were eating the rice and requested it be bundled and wrapped in silk to protect it. In another version, the rice packets were meant for the fish, in an effort to keep them from devouring Qu Yuan's body.

There are many different types of zongzi. Hong Kong's favourite dumpling features pork soaked in soy sauce or bean paste in the middle of glutinous rice. Zongzi comes in many shapes, but are most commonly pyramid shaped.

Mid-Autumn Festival

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, is held on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, when the moon is at its maximum brightness for the year. An ancient festival to celebrate the abundance of a good harvest that coincides with the autumnal equinox, the Mid-Autumn Festival commemorates Houyi, the Archer; Chang'e, the mythical Moon Goddess of Immortality; an emperor, either benevolent or malevolent; an elixir of life and the moon.

Mooncakes can be found in any bakery before the festival in all shapes and sizes. They may be filled with an assortment of ingredients including dates, nuts, lotus seed paste, bean paste and even pork or Chinese sausages. An old story recounts the plot of a clever patriot who hid a secret message in moon cakes and hastened the overthrow of the ruling Mongols of the Yuan Dynasty.

Chinese Wines

The distinct flavours of Chinese wines are designed to perfectly complement your meal.

Unlike Western wines, Chinese wine is distilled from rice, millet and other grains, as well as herbs and flowers. A wide variety of tonic wines are made with traditional ingredients. The popular rice-based Xiao Qing, or 'Yellow Wine', is best served warm. It tastes similar to medium-dry sherry and goes well with a wide range of Chinese cuisine, especially during the cool season.

Gao Liang and Mao Tai are fiery, millet-based distillations with an alcoholic content of 70%. These are definitely best sampled after a hearty meal. Wu Jia Pi is a sweet herbal wine believed to have medicinal qualities.

Check out QTS shops for all Wine & Spirits.