Traditional recipes 食谱食譜
Food is half of Chinese culture — every festival has its dish and every region its pride. Cook your way through the calendar and the map, and the vocabulary comes with dinner.
Chinese New Year 春节春節
Lantern Festival 元宵节元宵節
- 汤圆湯圓On the fifteenth night of the new year, the first full moon, families eat round rice balls in sweet soup — 圓 means round, and roundness means reunion.
- 炸元宵In the north the Lantern Festival dumpling is called 元宵 and it is rolled, not wrapped: hard balls of filling are tumbled through dry glutinous flour until they grow a coat.
Qingming Festival 清明节清明節
- 青团青團For Tomb-Sweeping Day, Jiangnan families dye sticky rice dough jade-green with mugwort juice and fill it with sweet bean paste.
- 馓子饊子Crisp golden coils of fried dough, sanzi are the survivor of the old Cold Food Festival, when lighting a fire was forbidden for days — so everything had to be fried crunchy in advance.
Dragon Boat Festival 端午节端午節
Mid-Autumn Festival 中秋节中秋節
- 月饼月餅Round like the harvest moon, mooncakes are cut and shared so everyone holds a piece of the same circle — separation and reunion in one pastry.
- 桂花糕Osmanthus blooms exactly at Mid-Autumn, scenting whole cities for two short weeks — and the legend says a giant osmanthus tree grows on the moon itself.