Dining on Dumplings for Prosperity
This article was published on February 1, 2022, and at the time of its original publication, I was obsessed with exploring ritualized consumption of food to gain luck, virility, strength, and prosperity. We tapped the As We Eat community for insights into the traditions of dumpling making and eating as related to Lunar New Year celebrations and spent a lovely afternoon folding ingot-shaped pork & shrimp dumplings with Sylvia Fine, a local foodie.
A dumpling can tell many stories - its shape mirrors those of precious gold ingots, its ingredients reflect ancient beliefs in the power of food to bring health and wealth to the eater, and its folding showcases how many hands make light work. Each dumpling itself is a sort of “perfect bite” showcasing a world of flavor encapsulated within a pillowy cloud of dough. Practically every food culture around the globe has some kind of dumpling, but perhaps none as globally famous and coveted as the ones stemming from China, Japan, and the Southeast Asian diaspora. When the time comes to celebrate the Lunar New Year, these tasty morsels are served in abundance.
On February 10, 2024, the Year of the Dragon will debut. The Dragon is a majestic and lucky creature in Chinese folklore, symbolizing bravery, creativity, and innovation, and this year is full of potential and opportunities for personal growth, professional success, and social impact. As promised in 2022, I will eat as many dumplings as possible to welcome prosperity, bravery, creativity, and innovation into my life.
Before I met Sylvia, the greatest extent of my knowledge about the Chinese Lunar New Year with its myriad traditions and intentions was the colorful paper placemat depicting the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, each with tantalizingly vague trait descriptions of the people born that year.
Despite my deep affinity for Chinese and Chinese American food, I had not attempted to make the dumplings treasured by families on Chinese New Year’s Eve. The plan was to interview her husband Charles for As We Eat, but Sylvia filled in when he fell ill, and I had the lesson of a lifetime.
Not only did Sylvia graciously demonstrate how to make genuinely delicious dumplings, but she regaled me with stories about preparing dumplings for Chinese New Year with her family and satisfied every curiosity about the tastes, sights, and smells of these bundles made to welcome prosperity and luck into the New Year.
What follows is a reasonable facsimile of our conversation while crafting dumplings filled with pork, shrimp, and mushrooms; all errors, omissions, and confusion are mine.
Kim: Why dumplings?
Sylvia: Dumplings symbolize wealth. In the old days, gold was in the form of ingots, and dumplings look like gold ingots, so it is something you want to have on your table. You get people together; friends and family all come together around the table, and when everyone gets involved doing something together that requires time, it is a time for conversation. Nowadays people don’t necessarily live in the same city so it’s a time to reconnect.
In China, you take several days to celebrate. If you travel very far, you want to stay a little while and take vacation. And once you are home, you want to know how everybody’s doing – How’s your cousin doing? How is your niece doing?
Kim: How much food do you make?
Sylvia: Chinese New Year’s Eve is a big dinner like Thanksgiving or Christmas, but we particularly like eight, ten, or twelve dishes – that’s a good number. This is enough to make 100 dumplings, but no one does it alone. We work together and the time passes quickly.
On New Year’s Eve people come together and we eat a big meal and play games like mahjong. My mother says that the first ten dumplings go quick, but then you take time to savor the rest.
On New Year’s Day, relatives and friends who live nearby come to your house and bring gifts for the kids and red envelopes with money for good luck. New Year usually lasts 15 days and on the 15th day, we eat tuanyang (glutinous rice ball dumplings) and have the Lantern Festival.
Kim: You remember making dumplings with your family? How did you learn?
Sylvia: It’s not a situation where only the women do this; everyone in the family – grandpa, grandma, kids, old friends…
My mom taught me how to wrap dumplings, and its hard when your hands are smaller, so she got me a dumpling maker. It doesn’t look as professionally done but it’s a way to make something. I think you can get one on Amazon.
My husband Charles is the chef, but I am the dumpling maker now.
Sylvia is so adept that she can quickly wrap ten dumplings to each one that I try to fold. Her folds are neat and precise; when the dumpling is boiled, steamed, or fried, there is no chance that the wrapping will unfold and denude the tender filling inside.
I feel once again like a child in the kitchen. I am all thumbs, and my work is not uniform, but like any family the individual parts make up some greater whole. My technique improves slightly as I go, but mostly, I focus on wishing luck and prosperity to each dumpling.
Leigh and I often discuss the symbols and beliefs about the transitive power of our foods. There is something about foods prepared with intention – be it for love, power, or luck – as much as there is intention in eating that food. With each dumpling fold, we offer the sincere wish for prosperity. We carry prosperity into the new year with each bite of a pearlescent dumpling.
2022 is the Year of the Tiger, a time marked for bravery, courage, and strength. There is great hope among the 2 billion people who celebrate this holiday that this Tiger Year will lead the world toward greater health and vitality.
I promise to eat however many dumplings I must to see that vision become a reality.
Gong hei fat choy, friends – Happy Lunar New Year!
You might also enjoy our three-part podcast series exploring Dumplings Around the World.
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I'm actually making dumplings tonight, of all things! So thankj you. I'll need your wisdom!
You know, not bad! 9/10 because I you made it seem possible.