Chinese New Year Food: Oranges, Yu Sheng, and home made pineapple pastries

 

Oranges are sold in large quantities to give to friends and family and neighbours. I took two to give to a Chinese friend who met us for a day before Chinese New Year Reunion lunch on their day off work. I gave her the two oranges. She looked extremely pleased and then gave them back to me. Apparently that is ok, to reciprocate with the same, even passing back the same set. It is like replying to a Christmas greeting, or sending a Christmas card when one is sent to you.

We bought the Yu Sheng, a Singaporean custom. In the time before Covid-19, the Toastmasters club meetings used to have Yu Sheng in the food break.

Now in 2021 because of Covid-19, we are fanned from tossing the food in the air with the chopsticks (for good luck) and shouting greetings.

We bought Yu Sheng from the supermarket. It is delicious. So many ingredients, all different colours. Crunch sesame seeds. Sweet sauce. Shredded vegetables. 

Fish of your choice. We added smoked salmon on the second day.

We gave two oranges as a greeting to our Chinese neighbours in Singapore.

They reciprocated with pineapple tarts, home made by a family member.

Pineapple decoration in the condo complex by the swimming pool.

Pineapple tarts sold in bakeries and supermarkets.

 Pastry balls with pineapple filling.

We looked up the recipe on line. One pineapple can make as many as 50 to 100 tarts! You put ten in a box, so that would be 5 to 10 boxes to give to family and friends.

Useful Websites

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusheng

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_tart

https://www.womensweekly.com.sg/gallery/food/festive-food/types-of-mandarin-oranges/

About the Author

Angela Lansbury teacher of English (advanced and English as a Second Language or English as a Foreign Language, French and other languages, aspiring polyglot.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Member of many toastmasters  speaker training clubs and speaking contest judge.

Angela Lansbury, the author of 20 books including Wedding Speeches & Toasts, and Quick Quotations, has lived in the USA, Spain and Singapore. 

She  has several blogs and writes daily on at least two of the following:

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

dressofthedayangela.blogspot.com

translateforfun.blogspot.com

 Please share links to your favourite posts.

Singapore's Celebration Food For Chinese New Year -Yu Sheng

Buy it in the supermarket. The dish contains many colours of food Yu Sheng Chinese New Year dinners.

Add fish

Add your favourite fish. Pink smoked salmon adds colour. Divide it into strips so everybody gets some of it, the size of the strips depending on your budget. Smoked salmon preserved with salt is safer in hot countries where fish goes off quickly. 

Provide Chopsticks

You need chopsticks to the food in the air, and pretty plates for all the diners, .You get free bamboo chopsticks in many places, with take away food, as an option on buffets instead of plastic knives and forks.

Restaurants, hotels and clubs will be holding Yu Sheng Chinese New Year dinners.

More Information From

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusheng

Singapore is a great stopover between Russia or Europe and Australia. 

More Information From

Travel Tips

travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com

australia.com

visitbritain.com

visitbritain.shop.com

visitbritain.org

visittheusa.co.uk

visitsingapore.com

Singapore Airlines: 

singaporeair.com

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2018/12/secret-travellers-seen-on-newton-station.html

https://travelwithangelalansbury.blogspot.com/2019/01/cute-musicians-in-cartoons-on-toilet.html

See also my posts on Waterloo Street, The National Gallery, and Singapore's big attractions.

What Do I Do At A Yu Sheng Chinese New Year Dinner In Singapore?

Problem
What will I eat? What should I wear?

Answers
Yu Sheng or Lo Hei Dinners
What I like most in Singapore is the celebration dinners, a uniquely Singaporean recent invention, the Yu sheng Lo Hei. The words mean Prosperity toss.

A big communal dish of shredded vegetables of all colours and if you are lucky smoked salmon pieces. The food is on a large round platter in the centre of the table. The organizer or chef or server adds the different ingredients one by one.

The Prosperity Toss
Everybody stands up and gathers around, chopsticks at the ready. At a given signal, everybody starts mixing the food with their chopsticks and tossing it in the air. The higher you toss, the greater the prosperity.

Don't wear clothes which might be damaged by grease or flying food or dripping food.

You then sit down and take the food, including the sauces. Lots of fun.

Where can you have a Yu Sheng? All the big hotels offer Yu Sheng meals. Look in the entrance halls for placards, also at the entrances to restaurants. In addition check out the local papers for special offers. You can pick up free newspaper at hotel receptions or at the MRT railway stations in central areas in the mornings.

Singapore Airlines
I always fly there on Singapore Airlines, economy class. We collect airmiles on a credit card. My husband is sometimes in business class.

Useful Websites:
www.singaporeair.com

Chinese New Year: Quentin's Eurasian Restaurant menu: Translations needed. What does it mean?

I'm translating the words on a CNY (Chinese New Year) menu for take away from Quentin's Eurasian Restaurant at the Eurasian centre in Singapore. These set menus range from 256 to 296 nett for 10 pax (ten people). Available from 1st to 28th February and they say We require 2 days notice for sets.

Heat ah! - Prosperity ah! (Hokkien, in Singapore, during Chinese New Year)

According to urbandictionary.com

"Gong Xi Fa Chai", it would mean "wishing you enlarge your wealth." 

Gong Xi: means wishing/blessing 

Fa: means enlarge

Chai means wealth.

The whole phrase is the standard Chinese New Year greeting which you will see on banners everywhere before and during Chinese New Year in Singapore and places owned by or welcoming the Chinese, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and more around Asia and the world.

Fa Cai Yu Sheng (Chinese New Year Singapore style large communal plate of noodles and fish and coloured shredded vegetables, seeds and sauces)
D u b a l
B o s t a d o r
Chuan Chuan (doubling is plural in Malay language)
P a t c h r i
chap c h y e
Sambal
Okra (also known as ladies fingers and b h i n d h i)
K e l u a k
Garam - hot
Semur
K a n g Kong (oops - predictive text likes King Kong)
Feng

Wikipedia says this of Yu Sheng:

Yusheng, yee sang or yuu sahng (Chinese: 鱼生; pinyin: yúshēng; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: hî-seⁿ or hû-siⁿ), or Prosperity Toss, also known as lo hei(Cantonese for 撈起 or 捞起) is a Teochew-style raw fish salad. 

It usually consists of strips of raw fish (sometimes salmon), mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments, among other ingredients. Yusheng literally means "raw fish" but since "fish (鱼)" is commonly conflated with its homophone "abundance (余)", Yúshēng (鱼生) is interpreted as a homophone for Yúshēng (余升) meaning an increase in abundance. Therefore, yusheng is considered a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor.

While versions of it are thought to have existed in China, the contemporary version was created and popularised in the 1960s amongst the ethnic Chinese community and its consumption has been associated with Chinese New Year festivities in Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

D u b a l - indonesian/ Hindi phonetic local language derived from English word double (watch out for predictive text turning the word into place name Dubai)
 C h u a n (Chinese p i n y i n for kebab) so double the word and you have skewers


Bostador - typical Eurasian dish, green c h i l i prawn samba - for descriptions and recipe see
http://katonglife.blogspot.co.uk/2008/08/prawn-bostadar.html
(Watch out for predictive text turning c h i l  i into Chile)

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.