A Information to The Finest Chinese language New Yr Snacks And Auspicious Treats in 2024

During customary home visiting for Chinese New Year, snacks are often offered to guests to munch on while catching up over conversations. Here’s a list of the places in Singapore that are offering the best Chinese New Year snacks this CNY 2024.

CNY treats are delicious and addictive, but these festive-exclusive goodies aren’t just good conversation starters; these petite delicacies also hold a wealth of auspicious meaning behind their physical form or ingredient.

Why CNY snacks are mandatory to have for Chinese New Year

The Chinese culture often attach wordplay and symbols with positive meanings to foods and dishes, especially festive food. Case in point: homonyms (words with the same pronunciation but have different meanings) and specific symbolic values like resemblance to auspicious items such as gold bars.

Popular treats to fill the coffee table during Chinese New Year include fruits, baked confectionaries, nuts, fried savouries, and more. Typically consumed during Chinese New Year, these snacks are integral to the festivities and do plenty to uplift the celebratory mood.

Some auspicious snacks and their respective meanings

Nuts

Groundnuts or peanuts are addictive snacks staple during Chinese New Year. Known as “huasheng” in Mandarin, it’s a homonym of “flower of life” that symbolises a long, healthy life upon consumption.

Nian Gao or New Year Sweet Rice Cake

With a literal translation to “Year Cake”, this sticky treat is made from glutinous rice flour and brown sugar. “Gao” is also the homonym for “high”. Thus, those who eat Nian Gao will be blessed with a higher status or successful life in the new year. Initially soft and chewy, the cake hardens after a few weeks and is usually fried after being sliced and dipped in batter.

Prawn Rolls

Prawn is pronounced as “ha” in Cantonese, which sounds the homonym for laughter. Thus, consuming prawns during Chinese New Year signifies happiness. the golden hue and cylindrical shape of prawn rolls bring to mind gold bars. Hence, its shape symbolises prosperity, while the prawn filling represents luck and happiness.

Pineapple tarts

We couldn’t end this list without a mention of pineapple tarts. Pineapples are known as “ong lai” in Hokkien, which literally translates to “fortune come”, which makes it easy to see why they’re such an iconic Chinese New Year snack. If you needed more excuses to indulge in these sweet, buttery morsels, just remind yourself that it’s considered lucky to munch on them during LNY. Similarly, giving pineapple tarts as gifts is a gesture of good fortune and luck to your recipient too.