New Year’s Cake – A Spring Festival Food

New Year’s Cake – A Spring Festival Food

　　New Year’s Cake – A Spring Festival Food

　　During the Spring Festival, many regions across China have the custom of eating New Year’s Cake. Also known as “年年糕” (nián nián gāo), it is a homophone for “年年高” (nián nián gāo), symbolizing that people’s work and life improve year after year.

　　As a food item, New Year’s Cake has a long history in China. In 1974, archaeologists unearthed rice seeds at the Hemudu site of the maternal clan society in Yuyao, Zhejiang, indicating that our ancestors began cultivating rice as early as seven thousand years ago. The people of the Han Dynasty referred to rice cakes by various names such as “稻饼” (dào bǐng), “饵” (ěr), and “糍” (cí). Ancient methods for making rice cakes also evolved from rice grain cakes to powdered cakes. A sixth-century recipe book, 《食次》(Shí Cì), documented the preparation method for a type of New Year’s Cake called “白茧糖” (bái jiǎn táng): “Steam glutinous rice until fully cooked, then pound it hot in a clean mortar to make a sticky rice paste. Ensure it is thoroughly mashed, leaving no rice grains...” Essentially, the sticky rice is steamed, pounded while hot into a paste, cut into peach pit-sized pieces, dried, fried, and then coated with sugar before serving.

　　The method of grinding rice into powder to make cakes was also developed quite early. This is evidenced in 《齐民要术》(Qí Mín Yì Shù), written by Jia Sixie of the Northern Wei Dynasty. The preparation involves sifting glutinous rice flour through a silk sieve, mixing it with water and honey to form a firmer dough, attaching dates and chestnuts onto the dough, wrapping it in bamboo leaves, and then steaming it. This type of glutinous rice pastry is quite characteristic of the Central Plains.

　　New Year’s Cake is mostly made by grinding glutinous rice into powder, and glutinous rice is a specialty of the Jiangnan region. In the north, where there is no grain as sticky as glutinous rice, the sticky millet (commonly known as “xiaohuangmi” or little yellow millet) has traditionally been the most similar. This millet, once hulled, ground into powder, mixed with water, and steamed, turns yellow, sticky, and sweet — a festive delicacy for people in the Yellow River basin to celebrate harvests. The 《帝京景物略》(Dì Jīng Jǐng Wù Lüè), published during the Chongzhen era of the Ming Dynasty, recorded that people in Beijing at the time would “eat millet cakes on the first day of the first lunar month, calling them 年年糕 (nián nián gāo).” It is not hard to see that “年年糕” originated as a homophone for the northern “粘粘糕” (nián nián gāo, sticky sticky cake).

　　There are many varieties of New Year’s Cake, with representative types including the white cake of the north, the yellow millet cake of rural areas north of the Great Wall, the water-milled New Year’s Cake of the Jiangnan water towns, and Taiwan’s red turtle cake. New Year’s Cakes vary in flavor between northern and southern styles.

　　Northern New Year’s Cakes are either steamed or fried, both being sweet in flavor; Southern New Year’s Cakes can be steamed, fried, sliced and stir-fried, or boiled in soup, offering both sweet and savory options.

　　It is said that the earliest New Year’s Cakes were used for worshipping gods during New Year’s Eve and ancestral offerings at the start of the year, and only later became a Spring Festival food.