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| Fishing for prosperity |
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By: Aubrey Buckingham(Shanghai Daily)
Feb 07,2008 |
Raw fish salad is auspicious for Chinese New Year. The higher - literally - you can toss the fish, the greater your fortune will be, writes Aubrey Buckingham.
Food lovers are rubbing their hands in anticipation of Chinese Lunar New Year and the associated feast that comes with it.
Just as Thanksgiving and Christmas in the West are occasions when the finest spreads are laid out on the dinner table, Spring Festival is never complete without the exquisite delicacies not enjoyed every day.
People of all cultures believe in getting the new year off to the best possible start, and a Lunar New Year meal must look the part in order to usher in an annum of wealth and abundance. Households rarely bat an eye when purchasing the choicest ingredients. Symbolism abounds in the dishes scarfed down.
Many of the older traditions have been lost in the larger cities, yet are carried on in the country's rural areas and among the Chinese diaspora.
One of the most popular of New Year's dishes is yu sheng (literally "fish up") or raw fish salad. This delicacy of fish strips (usually salmon), mixed with shredded vegetables and sweet and savory sauces, has its origins in the southern Chinese coastal regions.
Initially an offering to an ancient diety, today the tradition focuses more on the onomatopoeic similarity in Chinese between the words for "fish" and "abundance" - both yu, though pronounced with different tones.
"Yu sheng is now enjoyed by most Southeast Asian Chinese families during the Chinese New Year period when people hold annual reunion dinners among family and friends," says Whampoa Club Executive Chef Jereme Leung.
"The traditional ritual of tossing the yu sheng up in the air ('fish up' or lo hei in Cantonese) is said to invoke luck and success in the upcoming year: The higher it is tossed, the more luck it is supposed to bring."
While literally tossing the fish strips in the air is a traditional gesture of well-wishing among adults, it's not uncommon for the fish salad to end up over everyone's hair, while the children are having fun.
The Hong Kong-born Singaporean hosted a cooking class last Saturday to teach local gourmands the dish. While not exactly complicated, yu sheng requires a smorgasbord of ingredients and many opt instead to enjoy it at hotels such as the Pudong Shangri-La Shanghai or in restaurants like Whampoa Club.
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