My family, for instance, always served a seafood dish with a black noodle ingredient called fat choy, and it was because the last word sounded like the “choy" meaning wealth or prosperity. You always greeted family members and family friends on New Year’s when you saw them with the phrase “gong hay fat choy” (“wishing you prosperity”). Phone calls to relatives in China were also required to start with this phrase from both parties.

For Chinese New Year, Cheryl's family a special dish full of meaning. The women in the family always cook together (with Quan’s dad occasionally), but, for as long as Cheryl’s memory goes back — which her mom, Diana, jokes is just about two years — their family has pork lettuce cups every year, but only for the new year, marking it as a special occasion. Each ingredient in her mother’s recipe represents something special and fortuitous that make it an important addition to the menu. Lettuce (sang choy) means “life, prosperity, family.” Water chestnuts mean “unity,” while mushrooms mean “opportunity.” Pork represents“strength, wealth, abundance.” Along with these lettuce cups, Quan’s family prepares a whole chicken (to represent a harmonious and unified family) alongside rice cakes (nian gao) and other auspicious dishes.

Melissa’s mother was from Hong Kong while her father moved from Shanghai to Hong Kong at a young age. Growing up “in a very Cantonese household” meant their family gravitated toward seafood-heavy feasts, and celebrated Chinese New Year with the family hot pot. Though sides might occasionally, the staple at their hot pot table was a clear, chicken bone broth with goji berries, jujubes, and ginger made by her grandmother.

For Wenter’s family, noodles (long noodles mean long life) and dumplings (the shape represents Chinese ingots a.k.a. money) take a prominent presence since the carb-loaded dishes are what his grandma’s region is famous for. In fact, dumplings are present on nearly everyone’s table, and they are practically always homemade. And don’t forget about what I like to call dessert dumplings, aka tang yuan. Wenter’s family always ends their feast with it because, as Wenter explains, “it’s supposed to symbolize togetherness because of how sticky it is. As you eat it, it’s supposed to symbolize how your family will stick together.” And no matter how full you are, you must end the meal with at least one.

Building a Family through Food

And being united as a family is a running theme for Chinese New Year—besides being lucky and getting rich. Even though we’ve left home, these cultural traditions our families celebrated made an impression on us and we remember them, even if it is faintly, as adults because it brings us together. Wearing red on the day of our interview, Melissa said, “It’s always in the back of my mind, subconsciously, to try and follow those traditions when New Year’s gets closer, like wearing red, having gold around the house.”

Wenter usually tries to go home, but he isn’t making it back home for Chinese New Year this year. Instead, he and his partner Sam will still celebrate the occasion with their customers and staff by creating a new tradition: baking black sesame cookies paired with red envelopes and having a small party at their showcase location in Berkeley.

These traditions were passed down generation to generation, from mothers and fathers to daughters and sons, but, as we leave home and our families, we can still celebrate those ancient traditions while making some new ones along the way.

For us and anyone else who can’t make it home for Chinese New Year, it’s still important for us to carry on these centuries-old traditions. We can take those memories of being in the kitchen with our parents and siblings and replicate them with our friends and coworkers. While pleating dumplings at her dining room table for her upcoming hot pot party, Melissa smiles and tells me, “It’s fun to teach my friends about my culture, where I came from, and the food I grew up on.”

And what better way is there to share knowledge than with food?

Hot Pot Recipe

By Melissa King

Step 1: Select Soup Base

Step 2: Choose Your Proteins

Step 3: Choose Your Vegetables & Noodles

Step 4: Mix Your Sauce

Cooking time:

Thinly sliced meats – 10-15 seconds

Green Vegetables – 1 minute

Seafood, chicken, meatballs, noodles, dumplings, tofu, mushrooms, root vegetables – 3-5 mins

Instructions:

Place a hot plate or burner in the center of a large table. Place a large pot of broth in the center and bring it to a boil, then to a simmer. Place all the prepared ingredients around the hot pot. Have everyone mix up their own dipping sauces. Each person takes the proteins and vegetables of their choice and adds it to the pot to cook. When each item is done, retrieve it from the broth with a wire skimmer and dip it into your sauce and enjoy. As the liquid evaporates, add boiling water as needed.

Hot Pot Dos and Donts:

Rescuing items: it’s ok to rescue something you forgot about, but use your little wire basket to retrieve it, not your chopsticks.

Make sure you ask others before claiming something in the pot.

Do not cross the dividers and cross contaminate proteins.

Types of broth:

Chicken Bone Broth

Pork Bone Broth

Fish Bone Broth

Miso

Spicy Miso

Kimchi

Curry

Tom Yum

Mongolian Sichuan Chili

Sukiyaki

Dashi/Kombu

PROTEIN OPTIONS:

Meat:

Thinly sliced high-quality ribeye or chuck

Thinly sliced lamb shoulder

Thinly sliced pork belly

Thinly sliced kurobuta pork

Thinly sliced chicken thigh or breast

Offal – beef tripe, beef tendon, pork blood, pork intestines, duck tongues

Seafood:

Dungeness Crab/Blue Crab, pieces

Lobster, pieces

Boneless, fish fillet slices – salmon, snapper, flounder, cod

Manila Clams

Mussels

Whole Shrimp

Squid/Cuttlefish, slices

Scallops, slices

Bay Scallops

Fish cakes

Tofu:

Fresh Tofu

Frozen Tofu

Fried tofu

Fried Tofu Skins or Fried Yuba

Dumplings/Noodles/Rice:

Rice Noodles

Vermicelli

Ramen

Sweet potato noodles/shirataki

Steamed white rice

Homemade or frozen dumplings

Leafy Greens:

Romaine lettuce/iceberg

Spinach

Watercress

Peashoots

Chrysanthemum

Ong choy

Hearty Greens:

Napa cabbage

Bok choy

Scallions

Root Vegetables:

Carrots

Daikon

Potatoes

Kabocha squash

Lotus root

Winter melon

Mushrooms:

King trumpet

Enoki

Shiitake

Beech

Oyster

Wood ear

Chinese sauces options:

sesame oil

chili oil

xo sauce (chili and dried shrimp/scallops)

sa cha sauce (ground fermented shrimp/fish)

soy sauce

chopped garlic

scallion

cilantro

jalapeno/serrano

raw egg (chicken or quail)

Japanese sauces: