What other foods do Chinese eat during the Lunar New Year?
It’s that time of year again—when families all over China put dumplings to boil as they count down to the new year…But wait! That’s only half the truth.
Yes, dumplings are well-loved by some, but for a large part of the population outside of northern China, eating dumplings for the Lunar New Year is far from a given. In some regions of the country, they are absent, or only play a minor role on the dinner table.
This is not the first time such subversive words have appeared in TWOC: “...the idea that the Chinese, of all people, would just pick one food item to eat repeatedly every holiday is ludicrous,” Hatty Liu, TWOC’s very own managing editor, once railed in a rambunctious opinion piece on the tyranny of jiaozi.
But if not dumplings, who are the heavyweights on holiday dinner tables across the nation? Well, Chinese New Year food traditions are as diverse as the country’s landscapes, peoples, and cultures. Hop on this dumpling-less culinary tour with us for some samples of how people in different parts of China celebrate through food:
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