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New Year meals featuring the zodiac animal


Kent Wang

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Is it common to have the New Year's zodiac animal be a primary or featured ingredient in a New Year dinner? Certainly some exceptions would have to be made, e.g. dragon as it is mythical, dog as it is socially unacceptable and tiger as it is endangered.

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hmmm.. don't think we do any zodiac related food stuff.

and chinese new year meals are pretty set like other cultural celebratory meals. like you must have food that sounds auspicious you must have luxury ingredients abalone, conpoy, shittake, hair fungus, dried oysters, noodles, etc.

Actually think it might be a little disrespectful to eat chicken to celebrate the year of the chicken or any other animal that rules the year.

Closest thing I think would be eating lobster on the year of the dragon as lobster in chinese means "dragon prawn/shrimp"

"so tell me how do you bone a chicken?"

"tastes so good makes you want to slap your mamma!!"

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Is it common to have the New Year's zodiac animal be a primary or featured ingredient in a New Year dinner?

Who would like to eat monkeys, horses and rats?

the french and japanese have a liking for horse meat.

and chinese eat just about everything

remember my dad telling me about eating new born baby rats in alcohol. :shock:

"so tell me how do you bone a chicken?"

"tastes so good makes you want to slap your mamma!!"

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and chinese eat just about everything

remember my dad telling me about eating new born baby rats in alcohol.  :shock:

As a child, I remember I was in my aunt's house when their rat cage snared a pregnant rat. It gave birth to little pink rat babies (er...what do they call them?) bringing much excitement to the household. My uncle promptly put them in a bottle of wine not believing their good fortune. I had the horror of witnessing him down one later. Ewwwwwwww!

TPcal!

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Please take pictures of all the food you get to try (and if you can, the food at the next tables)............................Dejah

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Who would like to eat monkeys, horses and rats?

I would. I'd eat tiger if they weren't endangered, and I definitely would eat dragon.

Ditto.

I have eaten baby mice as mentioned above thread also, crunchy and gamey with a certain sweetness to them.

I agree that eating the animal of that N.Y.s eve would be disrespectful, although I am no expert in Chinese cuisine the holiday honers the animal.

Edit: I have also eaten the aformentioned rats and though palatable I would not seek them out. Horse though is a great meat and I do seek it.

Edited by M.X.Hassett (log)
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I would. I'd eat tiger if they weren't endangered, and I definitely would eat dragon.

Dragon is a legendary animal. Can't count that. You can eat snakes or lizzards as a substitute. But... oh no, we already have snake on the zodiac...

W.K. Leung ("Ah Leung") aka "hzrt8w"
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I would. I'd eat tiger if they weren't endangered, and I definitely would eat dragon.

Dragon is a legendary animal. Can't count that. You can eat snakes or lizzards as a substitute. But... oh no, we already have snake on the zodiac...

Komodo dragon? although they are endangered and I think they might even be toxic.

just settle for non-endangered animals/ food that have dragon in their name.

"so tell me how do you bone a chicken?"

"tastes so good makes you want to slap your mamma!!"

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longan = "dragon's eye"

Anyways, I don't mind eating snakes, frogs, snails, and brains, but I definitely draw the line at baby rats! No way! I'd rather eat insects.

dragon beard sweets...

lobster...

longan...

there a fish with dragon in the name isn't there?

baby rat ?

close your eyes it tastes like chicken :raz:

"so tell me how do you bone a chicken?"

"tastes so good makes you want to slap your mamma!!"

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there a fish with dragon in the name isn't there?

Isn't flounder called lung lei, or "dragon's tongue"?

yep leng lui

not sure what its called in english though.

so we got several things with dragon in the name :)

now how about dog?

"so tell me how do you bone a chicken?"

"tastes so good makes you want to slap your mamma!!"

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Dog is a common winter hotpot favourite around this part of China (Guangxi). It hasn't featured this New Year as we are having unseasonably warm weather.

I have never come across any taboo against eating the animal of the year. Last year we certainly demolished plenty chickens!

(Lobster is "long xia" or "dragon shrimp")

Edited by liuzhou (log)

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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[there a fish with dragon in the name isn't there?

Fish with 'dragon' in its name?

I found 'Carangid' in my Chinese Seafood cookbook. The picture of them is like a silvery sunfish. Small and cute. The Chinese name in the book seems to be 龙鱼 - Long Yu, but I couldn't find that translation anywhere. According to Merriam: of or relating to a large family (Carangidae of the order Perciformes) of marine spiny-finned bony fishes including important food fishes.

Also -- I found 'Pipefish' - 海龙 in a classified dictionary. Merriam says:

any of various fishes (family Syngnathidae) that are related to the sea horses and have a tube-shaped snout and a long slender body covered with bony plates

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During the rest of the year, sure, but what about for a celebratory New Year's dinner?

Sorry, I meant during New Year's dinners. Last New Year we certainly ate chicken and I'm certain that we will be eating pork in the year of the pig.

The Chinese name in the book seems to be 龙鱼 - Long Yu, but I couldn't find that translation anywhere

The problem is that many names are regional.

The only fish beginning with "long" whiich I can find in my rather large dictionary is 龙睛金鱼 long jing jin yü, literally "dragon's eye goldfish", buit translated as "telescope goldfish".

Isn't flounder called lung lei, or "dragon's tongue"?

The general translation (at least in Mandarin ) for flounder is either 比目鱼 "bimuyü)or 平鱼 (pingyü). I'm not sure what is meant by leng lei - don't know Cantonese! Do you have the characters?

...your dancing child with his Chinese suit.

 

The Kitchen Scale Manifesto

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