After the first New Year’s Eves completely as foreigners we tried to acculturate ourselves, at least as far as the culinary aspect was concerned, making attempts to prepare jiaozi 饺子, dumplings.
Chinese families spend the evening of the last day of the year preparing dumplings together, which are then eaten around midnight. Dumplings, which are made by joining the sides of the pasta to enclose the filling, are a symbol of the old year ending and the new one beginning. At the beginning our results were rather poor, we couldn’t close the dumplings well and they opened up during cooking in boiling water. We ended up taking a very tasty soup and eating the dumplings dough on the side.
The best result, however, was being able to spend time together and have lots of laughs. Then, over the years, and also with the advice and support of Ling Ling and Yani, we have improved a lot, now not only on New Year’s Eve, but also on other occasions we know how to prepare dumplings. One year, when we were still studying Chinese we invited our classmates, who were left alone in a megalopolis that during these holidays is empty and almost scary, and we, foreigners, taught them how to make dumplings!
This year, as “experts”, we decided to make them with three different fillings, one vegetarian and two meat-based: carrots, zucchinis, eggs and Mu Er- 木耳 (a type of mushroom), pork and celery and pork and Hui Xiang- 茴香.
This last filling is the one that arouses the most curiosity, because it is one of the most classic and due to the unique of Hui Xiang. Hui Xiang tastes like fennel, but is nothing like it. After many questions and observations, we understood that while we eat the “white ball” of fennel, the Chinese eat the leaves that grow on top. It’s a lot of work to prepare this filling because on New Year’s Eve you have to rush and queue at the markets and supermarkets to try to get some of these vegetables, then washing them is very difficult since they are so many small leaves on thin twigs, but for New Year’s Eve dumplings we do this and more! This year, however, in search of the true spirit of the festival, we went to an open-air market in a village near home where Hui Xiang was sold from overflowing trucks! The advantage of zero kilometers!
Too bad that, although this time we had prepared everything and had managed to close the dumplings well, also thanks to the instructions of Yana, a budding cook, between the rich dinner and the races to see and make the fireworks, at one a.m. we were not very hungry, and so we froze them, after all, as Yana reminds us, New Year’s celebrations lasts fifteen days!
We only ate two each, just to keep the tradition and let taste have its part in this celebration!
