Chinese food cake — Chinese new year cake NIAN GAO

Chinese food cake

Chinese food cake

The Chinese New Year cake (年糕 Nian Gao) is a rice cake crafted from glutinous rice. This is a snack to Chinese flavor characteristics. This cake is usually eaten during the New Year holiday, hence its name.

New Year’s cake has a long history in China. It is said that the origin of this cake is related to the General Zixu Wu, Wu Yue during the period.

In the Han Dynasty (207 BC-220 J.C. after J.C.), there were already Cakes New Year.

In dialectal dictionary Yang Xiong in the Han Dynasty, there was the word “gao” means “cake”, popular in the Wei dynasty (220-265), Jin (265-420) and those of the North and South.

In the past, the manufacture of rice cakes followed a process, evolving from the broken rice with rice flour cakes.

It is said that in the Liao Dynasty (907-1124), each family ate cakes in Beijing New Year day Lunar New Year.

Under the Ming (1368-1644) and Qing (1644-1911), the New Year’s cake became a snack that could be found in markets throughout the year and the taste of the cake varied from north to South.

The cake of Beijing New Year is typical of the North. It is yellow and white, symbolizing the gold and silver. It is also a sign of luck, his name is pronounced “nian gao” in Chinese, homophones of “growing up every year.”

New Year’s cake is somewhat different in the South. Guangdong cakes are often made with glutinous rice flour, yeast, peanut oil, melon seeds and bamboo leaves … Its color is red gold, mild, sweet taste, really delicious.

The cake New Year’s Hainan is tender, yellow and sweet.

For the people of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, the New Year’s cake must have the delicacy of a festive meal. There is a wide variety of tastes like sugar “osmanthus”, lard, rice and eight treasures.

The cake New Year is not just a delicious snack, but it also bears the words luck with the Chinese people, because the word “gao” sounds like “high” in Chinese. It reflects the desire of the people to have a standard of living higher and higher. Every year on New Year cake brings new hope to people and announced a better life in the New Year.

NOTES

– 年 nián: year / year / new year / age / period

– 糕 gāo: cake

– 黏 nián: sticky / glutinous

– 高 gāo: high / high / wide / top

Yang Xiong 揚雄 or Yang Hsiung (-53 ~ 18) Social Ziyun name, sometimes called Yangzi, is a philosopher and a Chinese poet of the late Western Han and the beginning of the Xin Dynasty, author also of Fangyan (dialects) collection of regional expressions.

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