How Our CNY Goodies Bring Families Together During Festivities

CNY should actually be a favorite for everyone, and the opportunity to celebrate the Lunar New Year with families and friends make the occasion especially joyful. Inextricable from these gatherings that contain the collective spirit of every family is the scrumptious and sentimental associations of CNY cookies and snacks.

Whether it’s the crispy pineapple tarts with buttery shortcrust that disintegrated in your mouth, the sweet nian gao cakes that were incredibly moist and sticky, to the smoky bak kwa which was a concoction of sticky and sweet and slightly salty – groups come together to prepare these traditional snacks weeks before around this festive season and everybody loves to get busy in the kitchen. Grandmothers will be kneading pineapple tart doughs, mothers will be flipping over crispy nian gao on the stove and the children will practise molding ang ku kueh. The preparation of these goodies creates the approach of the festive mood and homes feels the nice aroma and cheerful talking.

When each and every homemade treat is freshly baked to optimum and ideal conditions in the kitchen, they will be consumed immediately by the very own family cooks themselves. The fruits of their labours brings delight on every face and I make an acknowledgement that this year’s Chinese New Year goodies are the best. Extruded items will be well packed in tubs as a gift for neighbors, relatives and friends when visiting during the new year holidays. It has become a norms among the aunties in the neighbourhood to challenge themselves to bake the tastiest nian gao or pineapple tarts!

Finally towards the evening of CNY’s eve, theellery of homemade treats takes centre stage of the dining table along with any other dish that might be prepared. The snacks to be brought when families sit together to enjoy this meal as they embrace the new year, adds a special feel of home and endearment to the symbolic event. Reunions with close and extended family members spending quality time together with needles and compasses during the first 2 days of Chinese New Year will include serving tea, pineapple tarts, cookies, kueh bangkit, kueh lapis, biscuits and delicious goodies.

The moment to communicate with the tea is good for getting together for two and three generations where grandparents fried pineapple, papaya and the slices of winter melon and give them to the children. All varieties of sweet and sticky specialties of all colours and shapes never fail to engage the happy children who eagerly load their plates from the plates stacked with various items. Sneaky hands may even pinch more candies as well as other sweets and dispose them somewhere away from the rest of the group’s view.

Chap Goh Mei or known as the Chinese Valentine’s Day falls at the last day of the 15-day CNY festival. Many families will come together for this dinner and then the main highlight of the night will be the tossing of Chinese oranges. Single women and ladies see themselves using oranges which have their names and telephone numbers written on the rind and they will propagandize the fruit by throwing it into lakes or rivers. That person who takes the oranges, such is destined to be an other half of that person!

The climax of Chap Goh Mei signals to people the final conclusion of 2 weeks of Chinese New Year celebrations. But of course before they say their goodbyes for another year, the family will exchange the final homemade pineapple tarts, love letters and assorted cookies. These last portions of sweets to car plates are loving called pheng kueh, or festive cakes, appropriately fabricated for every happiness where relatives and friends reunion and to show and proclaim the fellowship where the CNY celebrations have brought this season.

When the last of the new year colours – red and gold volley to the floor; The house feels almost barren for a while since there isn’t a conglomeration of people preparing or celebrating with their beloved. But the family bonds that have been created have gotten closer and stronger all because of CNY snacks and treats that reunite everyone despite anything. These highly popular snacks that remind people of their childhood will definitely help us get through to the next time round CNY comes around with even sweeter sweets next year. The old-fashioned traditions of making delightful pineapple tarts and other Chinese New Year treats at home will go on as a legacy eternally. Posted on being tied in knots by family ties knotted with flour, sugar and loads of love – a tradition as old as the new year.