The Chinese celebration of the Lunar New Year is upon us!

One aspect of the holiday that I particularly enjoy is how wordplay and homophones factor into the selection of traditional foods. An example is “nian gao”, a sweet glutinous rice cake and a homophone for “high year” – with the connotation of elevating oneself higher with each new year. This is the Year of the Pig which, of course, is my cue to taste every traditional delight I can get my trotters on, but there was one year when the means by which to sample a particular nian gao turned into a complete mystery.

Curious? Read on…. Continue reading →