Countries like China, Taiwan, Vietnam, South Korea, and Malaysia all celebrate Lunar New Year. It’s the most important holiday in China and within Chinese diaspora communities around the world. It marks the first new moon of the lunisolar calendar and ends with the year’s first full moon two weeks later.
This year, the Lunar New Year begins on Saturday, Feb. 10., and ushers in the Year of the Dragon.
Customs and traditions vary by country, and by family, including foods served during the 15-day holiday. For those who observe, Lunar New Year or Spring Festival begins with family and friends reuniting to dine on a feast of lucky dishes. In addition to lucky foods, there are often fireworks, traditional dance performances, and red envelopes stuffed with money given out. The color red symbolizes joy and good luck.
Food is an integral part of the holiday, with certain dishes and fruits like dumplings, longevity noodles, steamed fish, spring rolls, and oranges specifically prepared and eaten to bring good luck for the coming year. For Chinese people, foods with words doubling as homonyms are given pride of place at the Lunar New Year table.
“While many Lunar New Year dishes are eaten throughout the year, one that our family eats exclusively on this holiday is Ho See Fat Choy, or dried oysters with black moss,” says Candy Hom of dumpling pop-up Soupbelly. “The words ‘fat choy’ are a homonym for ‘get rich’, and Chinese people enjoy auspicious sounding words and symbolism associated with their foods.”
Another Lunar New Year tradition closely observed is paying respect to one’s ancestors.
“It’s very important that we honor our ancestors during this time of year,” We Suki Suki and Qommunity owner Quynh “Q” Trinh says. She and her family were refugees in 1975 when they came to the United States from Vietnam. Trinh and her family always set a bowl of mandarin oranges beside her late father’s photograph during Lunar New Year or Tết, short for Tết Nguyên Đán, in Vietnamese.
“Mandarin oranges are especially lucky because they represent fruitfulness and wealth for the new year,” she says. “We also put the oranges on our altars for our loved ones who have passed.”
Despite Thailand celebrating the New Year in April with Songkran, some Thai people also observe the Lunar New Year due to the country’s population of nearly seven million residents of Chinese descent.
Talat Market co-owner and chef Parnass Savang says his first memories of celebrating Lunar New Year with his family were when he was five years old. Growing up, his family owned and operated Thai restaurants north of Atlanta. Squeezing in time for Lunar New Year meant scheduling around the restaurant.
“My restaurant is connected to my personal life, my family life, and it’s about discovering who I am as a Thai American living in Georgia,” says Savang. “My mom would take a week off to do a dinner for the family and our ancestors. Even when they were really busy at the restaurant, they made time. My mom works with me now at Talat.”
Last year, Savang celebrated three different New Year holidays at Talat Market: the Western New Year, the Lunar New Year, and the Thai New Year. He hopes to host Songkran again this year in April.
Like Thailand, the neighboring country of Laos celebrates the New Year in April with Boun Pi Mai. And like Savang, Molli Voraotsady, the owner of Laotian food pop-up So So Fed, also grew up celebrating Lunar New Year during the winter because her mother hails from Hong Kong.
As a child, Voraotsady and her family would grab dim sum and roast duck from restaurants along Buford Highway to kick off the Lunar New Year.
“My mom would give us red envelopes, and my family in Hong Kong would even sometimes mail them to us. The money (red envelopes have money inside) stopped flowing once I got older,” Voraotsady says. “Now I’m tasked with the role of handing them out to the younger generation.”
Below, Hom, Voraotsady, Trinh, and Savang share more of their Lunar New Year food traditions and what they have planned for this year.
Candy Hom – Soupbelly
Various Atlanta locations
Growing up, Hom’s mother would cook between 10 and 12 dishes for a banquet-style spread for Lunar New Year. Friends joined the family. She remembers the “extravagance of the holiday” because her parents would break out the fine China. The most popular dumplings Hom serves at her pop-ups are those the family still makes for Lunar New Year: pork and cabbage potstickers. The dumplings are a sentimental favorite.
“We will be celebrating with friends, eating dinner at Canton Cooks in Marietta, and Dim Sum at Royal China in Duluth. Since the holiday lasts 15 days, we will end it by visiting my parents who are preparing a feast as well. We’ll have various dishes such as steamed fish with ginger and scallions, longevity noodles, and of course, lots of dumplings.”
Molli Voraotsady – So So Fed
OK Yaki, 714 Moreland Avenue, East Atlanta
For Voraotsady, kicking off the Lunar New Year often meant dining out with her family at restaurants along Buford Highway.
“Growing up my mom, dad, sister and I used to go to dim sum at either Canton House or Royal China for Lunar New Year. After ‘yum cha’ we’d stop by 99 Ranch for groceries, then get to-go roast duck from Mings BBQ before heading home.”
But her mother always makes lo bak go or turnip cakes and egg custard tarts for the family. Her dad makes whole steamed ginger fish. This year, Voraotsady is making a small Lunar New Year dinner at home with her husband. Steamed ginger fish is on the menu as are soup dumplings.
Voraotsady is also serving a special Lunar New Year menu on Feb. 12 to include mapo tofu and siu mai dumplings, her dad’s steamed ginger fish, turnip cakes, egg rolls, and her mother’s egg custard tarts.
Q Trinh – We Suki Suki, Qommunity Food Hub, Eatavision
479-b Flat Shoals Avenue, East Atlanta Village
Trinh says growing up, she didn’t live near a Vietnamese community. Lunar New Year allowed her to reconnect with Vietnam and with its people and traditions.
“My family is from South Vietnam so we always have the traditional Lunar New Year savory cake called bánh tét. It’s made the same way as the more well-known bánh chưng,” Trinh explains. “Both are made with glutinous rice, pork, and mung bean and wrapped and steamed in a banana leaf. Bánh tét is more tubular.”
Trinh’s family eats bánh tét sliced with sweet pickled vegetables. Another family tradition is eating candied ginger and coconut, with the latter candies dyed green, pink, or yellow.
Trinh is celebrating Lunar New Year and the 12th anniversary of her bánh mì shop We Suki Suki this year. Her mother and older brother are flying in from New Orleans. The dragon is also the zodiac sign of her late father. Trinh is planning a dual celebration for Lunar New Year and We Suki Suki’s anniversary on Feb. 10 with a three-course menu of bánh tét, roasted Cornish hen with sticky rice, and a black-eyed pea dessert. The marinade for the hen includes fish sauce. It’s a dish Trinh’s family only makes for Lunar New Year.
Parnass Savang – Talat Market
112 Ormond Street, Summerhill, Atlanta
Growing up in metro Atlanta, Savang says his grandmother planned and cooked most of the family’s Lunar New Year dishes. His mother now carries on the tradition, including honoring Savang’s late grandparents by making a special glutinous rice flour dumpling filled with sticky rice, shrimp, pork, and peanuts and shaped like the yin and yang, with one colored red or pink.
This year, his mother is making between 15 and 18 dishes for Lunar New Year, many handed down from Savang’s grandmother.
“We set the food out and then we pray and have candles that depict the amount of time our ancestors are eating,” Savang says. “Once they’re done eating and the family arrives and does their prayers we move the food, warm it up, and eat it ourselves. But the ancestors eat first.”
For the sold-out Talat Market Lunar New Year dinner on Feb. 10, Savang is collaborating with his sous chef and China native Zheng Li. Savang is making hoi jaw: pork and crab sausage wrapped and fried in tofu skin served with plum sauce. It’s a dish his mother always makes for Lunar New Year and is very special to Savang.
Check out where to celebrate Lunar New Year around Atlanta.