The Spring Festival is the most important traditional festival for the Chinese.

The most anticipated day when I was a child was the Chinese New Year. In addition to New Year's money and new clothes, there were also all kinds of mouth-watering delicacies.

Although people's living standards have improved now, and big fish and meat are no longer only available during the New Year and holidays, those traditional foods with the flavor of the New Year are still an indispensable protagonist on the table.

If you don’t eat these delicacies during the Chinese New Year, you will always feel like you are missing something.

So, what are the traditional delicacies that must be eaten during the Spring Festival?

14 kinds of delicacies to eat during the Chinese New Year. Which one is a must-eat during the Spring Festival in your hometown?

1. Dumplings On the New Year’s Eve dinner table in the north, dumplings are a delicacy that cannot be replaced by any delicacies.

Dumplings, also known as Jiaoer and Jiaozi, mean the alternation of old and new.

On New Year's Eve, people stay up late and eat dumplings, which means "New Year's Eve".

In addition, dumplings look like ingots, so eating dumplings during the Chinese New Year also means "bringing in wealth".

Steamed dumplings 2. Wontons Wontons are homophonic to "chaos" and "hundun". Eating wontons during the Chinese New Year means the beginning of the year, and it also means filling the warehouse with food.

Another reason is that wontons are shaped like gold ingots, and there are particularities in wrapping wontons during the Chinese New Year. You must hold the two corners of the wonton wrappers and wrap them inward, which means "to make money."

Wontons 3. Rice cakes: Eating rice cakes during the Spring Festival is a custom in many places, such as red/white rice cakes in Fujian, water-milled rice cakes in Ningbo, osmanthus sugar rice cakes in Suzhou, mince rice cakes in Beijing, sticky rice cakes in the north, etc.

Because rice cakes are also called "nian rice cakes", which are homophonic with "every year is high", eating rice cakes means that people's work and life are getting better year by year.

Rice cake 4. Eight-treasure rice. Eight-treasure rice is exquisite in its use, complicated in craftsmanship, generous in weight, and highly sweet. It is suitable for the whole family to share and enjoy, symbolizing reunion.

According to folklore experts, the lotus seeds in the eight-treasure rice symbolize marriage harmony, the longan symbolizes reunion, the kumquats symbolize good luck, the red dates symbolize early birth of a child, the honey winter melon and honey cherries symbolize the sweetness of life, the barley seeds symbolize longevity, and the melon seeds symbolize peace and safety.

From this point of view, eight-treasure rice is like a cornucopia, which means that the new year will bring abundant wealth.

5. Fish The last thing on the Spring Festival table is fish, because fish is the same as "surplus", which means "surplus" and "more than enough every year."

There are many things to pay attention to when eating fish during the New Year. Fish should be the last dish on the New Year’s Eve dinner and cannot be finished, which symbolizes that there is “surplus” every year.

In some places, fish heads and tails are left to be eaten on the first day of the Lunar New Year, which means there will be plenty of "surplus" from beginning to end of the year.

Chopped Chili Fish 6. Chicken is homophonic with the word "auspicious". There is a saying in Guangdong that "no feast is complete without chicken". Chicken is an indispensable delicacy for Cantonese people during the Chinese New Year.

People eat chicken to pray for good luck and prosperity in the coming year.

7. Tangyuan In southern my country, there is a custom of eating glutinous rice balls during the Spring Festival.

The "yuan" of glutinous rice balls means "reunion" and "completeness", symbolizing family harmony and sweet life.

Tangyuan 8. Glutinous rice cake "making glutinous rice cake to celebrate the New Year" is particularly popular in western Hunan.

Ciba is made of glutinous rice and is very sticky. Eating glutinous rice during the New Year can "stick" family members together, symbolizing people's reunion in the New Year.

Brown sugar glutinous rice cake 9, spring rolls Spring rolls are popular all over the country, especially in the Jiangnan generation.

Spring rolls are stir-fried with leeks, bean sprouts, shredded pork, celery, shredded tofu, shredded chicken, mushrooms and other ingredients, and then wrap the vegetables with pancakes and eat them from beginning to end, which means "starting and ending."

In some places, fried spring rolls are eaten. The fried spring rolls look like pieces of gold bars, which has the auspicious meaning of "a thousand taels of gold".

Fried spring rolls 10. Noodles Some areas in Fujian have the custom of eating noodles during the New Year.

Noodles are known to mean longevity, and eating them during the New Year also means "longevity".

11. Cured meat In the past, cured meat was a particularly popular flavor food in autumn and winter.

After the Laba Festival, almost every household begins to make sausages, cured meats, cured fish, etc., which become good dishes to go with wine during the Chinese New Year.

Sausage 12. Sticky bean buns Sticky bean buns, also called "New Year bean buns", are a New Year's pastry made only by Northeastern people during the Spring Festival.

Sticky bean buns are made with yellow millet and adzuki bean fillings.

Steamed sticky bean buns need to be fermented just like steamed steamed buns. The word "fa" in the dough means "getting rich" and "making a fortune", while steamed sticky bean buns symbolize "prosperity".

13. Making rice dumplings during the New Year and eating rice dumplings is a custom only found in some rural areas such as Guangxi and Zhejiang, which means "package".

Especially families with children will often pack some to wish their children can "go to high school" in the future.

14. Soybean sprouts: Soybean sprouts, Suzhou people also gave it a good name, called "Ruyi Cai".

People in Shanghai and Suzhou must have "wishful dishes" at their New Year's Eve dinner, wishing them "everything they want" in the new year.

In addition, soybean sprouts are sprouts, which symbolize prosperity and growth, and are very auspicious.

Soybean sprouts. What do you usually eat during the Chinese New Year?

What else do you know about some foods with beautiful meanings during the Spring Festival?

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