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 within 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 truly 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 confusions 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 easily wrap 10 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 into each dumpling.
Leigh and I often discuss the symbols and beliefs about the transitive power of the foods we eat. There is something about foods prepared with intention – be it for love, power, or luck – as much as there is intention in the eating of that food. With each dumpling fold, we offer the sincere wish for prosperity. With each bite of a pearlescent dumpling, we carry prosperity into the new year.
2022 is the Year of the Tiger, a time marked for bravery, courage, and strength. There is great hope among the 2 billion people on the planet who celebrate this holiday that this Tiger Year will lead the world towards greater health and vitality.
I promise to eat however many dumplings I must to see that vision become reality.
Gong hei fat choy, friends – Happy Lunar New Year!