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Mrs. Sun & the Lunar New Year
by Molly O'Neill
A grandmother's story, and the food that symbolizes life
Cong Jingming Sun’s grandchildren were getting tired. They loved accompanying her on extended shopping trips in Manhattan’s Chinatown. They loved learning the Chinese names of the foods that were piled high on the tables along Canal Street, loved learning the symbolic meaning of the various ingredients. But Eva was only 4 years old, Max was a year younger, and after several hours roaming Chinatown, she could feel the tug on both her hands become heavier.
“I’m going to take you to a dim sum restaurant!” she announced. But instead of squealing in delight, Max, who was just learning to talk, politely refused the invitation. He said that he and his sister would rather wait until they got back home to eat. “Grandma’s food is the best,” he said.
Sun has had many stories to share and many reasons to be proud since moving from China’s Liaoning province to Jackson Heights, Queens, nearly 60 years ago. Working as a beautician, she once gave Eleanor Roosevelt a manicure. She also dressed numerous stars and royalty when working as a seamstress in the Garment District. But neither her adventures nor the compliments her cooking garnered — she’s long been considered the finest cook in her family, if not her entire neighborhood — made her puff up like she did that day on Canal Street. She felt like a chrysanthemum tea blossom in full bloom.
Her grandson’s declaration also confirmed something Sun had suspected: Food was a powerful way of sharing her heritage with her grandchildren, a way of allowing them to visit her childhood in a different era and on a different continent, a way of teaching them about their culture.
This is, of course, especially true at the Lunar New Year, when Chinese families throughout the world reunite to share the elaborate feasts that are designed to attract good fortune in the coming year. Every dish — and most ingredients — is symbolic. When possible, for instance, foods are served in their whole form — a whole chicken, a whole fish, and in some cases a whole pig — to symbolize completeness.
Some dishes are significant because their names are homonyms for auspicious words or sayings. The word for "fish," for instance, sounds like the word for "abundance." The number eight sounds like the word "to prosper." A whole fish is a must-have for the holiday meal. Sun is known for her eight-treasure vegetables and renowned for her red braised whole fish.
The vegetable dish, often called Buddha’s Delight, can be made with a variety of vegetables, whatever seems freshest. For a normal meal, in deference to her husband’s cholesterol, she would steam her fish simply. New Year's, however, calls for braising fish with fatty Chinese ham to a glossy, lacquer-like glaze. If she were to select one recipe to give her grandchildren, it would be this.
In fact, poised to celebrate their seventh and eighth Lunar New Year, Max and Eva are well on their way to absorbing the holiday’s meaning. They know about the offerings to the kitchen god — the household saint who, at the outset of the lunar year, makes his annual journey to heaven carrying his report of the family’s behavior in the previous year — the honey meant to sweeten his report, the sticky rice cakes meant to thwart any negative words. They have long since absorbed enough of the little turns and touches of their grandmother’s dishes to know that her cooking is better than anyone else’s. Appreciation is, in the end, the sum total of the holiday’s twin purpose: to assess the past and to aspire to higher heights.
Continue to the recipes: Mrs. Sun's Eight-Treasure Vegetables and Mrs. Sun's Red Braised Whole Fish
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