It’s the yr of the dragon, and celebrations are about to start.

Beginning on Saturday, a whole lot of thousands and thousands of individuals across the globe will mark the Lunar New 12 months. Households will come collectively for celebrations that may lengthen over a number of days in a number of nations, together with China, North and South Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Brunei and Vietnam in addition to amongst diaspora communities in different nations.

Meals is a central a part of the Lunar New 12 months expertise with signature dishes ready particularly for the event.

Here’s a take a look at some Lunar New 12 months dishes and what they symbolise:

Yusheng

This vibrant uncooked fish salad with contemporary greens is fashionable in Malaysia and Singapore. It’s believed to have been launched by Cantonese and Teochew immigrants. In Cantonese, the phrase for fish sounds just like the phrase for abundance.

Sliced uncooked fish is central to the dish, and brilliant salmon has lengthy been the go-to possibility.

Meghan Poh, a Singapore-based designer and illustrator, informed Al Jazeera that assembling yusheng could be an thrilling communal ritual for households.

In line with the 24-year-old, auspicious phrases are sometimes chanted with the addition of each ingredient as yusheng is assembled. Most chants are wordplays on the ingredient names.

Shredded carrots and lime add a zesty earthiness whereas crushed golden crackers and peanuts add a nutty crunch. Spices are sprinkled, oil is drizzled after which comes probably the most thrilling half: Members of the family and buddies collect across the dish with massive chopsticks to toss collectively the weather in a ritual that can also be known as the prosperity toss.

Actually, yusheng can also be known as lo hei, which is Cantonese for “tossing up”. “Apparently, the upper you toss, the wealthier or luckier you’re within the New 12 months,” Poh mentioned.

Banh chung

For the Lunar New 12 months, homes in Vietnam are embellished in crimson and yellow – “the colors of wealth and wellbeing in our tradition”, Vietnamese scholar Thuc Ngo mentioned.

Workplaces and faculties take an eight- to 10-day break, also called the Tet vacation in Vietnam. “We’ve large platters with totally different sorts of meals,” she mentioned, explaining that the objects are additionally introduced on the ancestral altar.

Banh chung is a signature Lunar New 12 months dish in Vietnam. It consists of sq. layers of fragrant glutinous rice, tender beans and pork.

Thuc, who’s finding out enterprise in Qatar, mentioned the layering of the numerous parts in banh chung symbolises pure parts similar to animals and vegetation dwelling in concord with people.

“You utilize the banana leaf to wrap them along with the string,” Thuc mentioned. The banh chung are then positioned in a big pot and steamed for as much as 10 hours till they’re cooked into shiny, inexperienced squares with a fragile flavour. The stickiness of the rice is a signature property of the rice truffles. They’re additionally mentioned to be symbolic of the earth or the land of Vietnam.

“It’s a large custom to assemble across the large pot of banh chung on New 12 months’s Eve to observe it prepare dinner in a single day, in order that your complete household has banh chung to eat all through the Tet vacation,” she mentioned.

Tteokguk

This savoury rice cake and meat inventory soup is a staple of Korean delicacies and a signature dish in the course of the Lunar New 12 months. The broth is mostly beef-based. Seaweed and inexperienced onion could be added to the dish.

Historically, rice truffles weren’t consumed every single day as a result of rice was a scarce, costly commodity and was reserved for particular events, such because the Lunar New 12 months, known as Seollal in Korea.

Tteokguk is among the meals introduced to ancestors throughout a conventional ritual known as charye.

The chewy rice truffles are small and round. They’re believed to resemble cash and symbolise wealth and prosperity. They’re additionally white, symbolic for purity and cleanliness as Koreans mark the beginning of a New 12 months.

Pineapple tarts

Notably fashionable as a Lunar New 12 months candy in Taiwan, pineapple tarts are actually widespread in different components of Asia – notably Malaysia and Singapore – in addition to different components of the world.

As soon as once more, the importance of the dish lies in phrases and sounds. The Chinese language phrase for pineapple, “ong lai”, sounds much like “incoming luck” within the Hokkein dialect. That’s what makes the buttery cookies a should–have for the celebrations, with households stocking up on provides for festive guests or to provide as items to buddies and enterprise associates.

Pineapples have additionally turn into a political image of Taiwanese identification in the course of the self-governing territory’s mounting tensions with China. In 2021, Beijing banned the import of the fruit from Taiwan.

Zhai choy

Poh, the designer in Singapore, prepares meals together with her quick household and uncle for a big household gathering each Lunar New 12 months. Her household sits round the home wrapping spiced meat rolls, following her aunt’s recipe.

As soon as the household gathers, they sit round, speak, eat and watch motion pictures collectively.

“Earlier than my grandma handed, she used to make this Cantonese dish known as zhai,” she mentioned.

Zhai is a vegetarian dish with elements similar to fermented tofu, mushrooms and cabbage. Poh defined that it additionally has fats choy, which seems like strands of hair when dry, and has the feel of vermicelli when moist. Poh mentioned fats choy can also be a homonym for gaining wealth.

Chewy glass noodles added to zhai characterize longevity. Shredded carrots additionally characterize good luck.

The dish additionally helps to stability out the heaviness of different meals, typically meat-based, that’s consumed in the course of the Lunar New 12 months, Poh mentioned.

Rising up, meals helped Poh get previous awkward moments throughout Lunar New 12 months celebrations, which may in any other case be overwhelming due to massive household gatherings, she mentioned. “Particularly while you don’t conform to typical, conventional requirements,” she mentioned, similar to by pursuing “a special profession than what’s historically anticipated”.

“Now that I’m older, I recognize the event extra and discover myself taking part a bit extra,” she remarked. She now hopes to learn to make conventional Lunar New 12 months recipes.

“I feel a variety of these recipes are getting misplaced, like my po po’s [grandmother’s] zhai recipe, after she handed, I by no means learnt it, and I don’t suppose any of my aunts know easy methods to make it. Yow will discover a recipe on-line, however it’s totally different.”