We are ushering out the Snake and galloping into the Year of the Horse this Lunar New Year. While I usually try to make it home to Singapore for the week-long Chinese New Year feasts, I’ve actually spent the last two years here in Macau for this celebration. Throughout the city, there are troops of lion and dragon dancers, performing to rhythmic gongs and drums to scare away bad luck and the “Nian” monster. And there is an overwhelming number of restaurant promotions, particularly catering to the Mainland Chinese crowd who have more than a week of holidays.
But what I really wanted to know is what the local Macau Chinese eat, and how they celebrate these holidays. The older generation at the Red Market didn’t offer much insight apart from how the current generation opts for eating out at hotpot restaurants or having a hotpot at home for their reunion dinner, unless grandparents decide to get behind the stove and cook.
The holiday period sees most local diners (cha chaan tengs) as well as the wet markets closed from three to eight days, while local supermarkets are stocked full of the ubiquitous turnip cakes (lo bak gou) and glutinous rice cakes (neen gou) both eaten during this time of year because of their auspicious meanings – the word for turnip cake sounds like the word for good fortune, and sticky glutinous rice cakes symbolize family togetherness and unity.
Other Cantonese homophone dishes for Chinese New Year include fish –– their phonetics symbolizing abundance in the New Year – as well as prawns (har) for a happy year ahead – in Cantonese har is synonymous with the sound of laughter.
In my quest to understand this festive season better, I asked my friend Filipe Senna Fernandes who has strong Macanese roots, about his food memories.
“Besides the traditional vegetarian Buddhist dish Jai, our family cooks up two must-have Macanese dishes: the Macanese-style turnip cake which is softer in texture than the Cantonese one and is eaten with Chinese chilli sauce (not the oil one); and Tacho – a the winter casserole. This Macanese stew uses many Cantonese ingredients like preserved Chinese sausage (lap cheong) and other cured meats (like cured duck) mixed with chicken and pork leftovers, pig skin and loads of shredded cabbage. Because it is very rich in flavour, I can have lots of rice with this dish!”