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Doug's Domain

Douglas J. Peckenpaugh is community director of content and culinary editor of Food Product Design. His career has centered on food and agricultural publishing, working as a writer, editor and publisher of magazines, books and websites. He also worked as a cook and restaurant manager while earning his B.A. in Professional and Creative Writing from Purdue University.

Ringing in the Ox

January 27, 2009 Comments

Posted in Blog

We didn’t serve our food whole (with head, feet, tail, etc. all attached) as tradition dictates to help ensure a good start and finish to the year (hey, we’re an Americanized blend of mainly Swedish and German in our family ... watching our 3-year-old and 5-year-old attempt dexterity with chopsticks is rather humorous...), but we did have broccoli and long beans for parental longevity.

The hoisin-accented stir-fry? Homemade. The egg rolls? Carryout from the local Chinese restaurant.

But the end result was a festive Chinese New Year dinner last night to celebrate the beginning of the lunar year of the ox. The kids even made festive hats, complete with dragon stickers and red paper streamers and pipe cleaners, to commemorate the occasion.

Chinese food is staging a revival of late as more Americans make moves toward digging into the more-authentic, regional dishes that comprise the cuisine—not just what has evolved here in the States over the last century (which is fine, but there is so much more territory to explore...). And the annual new year’s celebration is a great time to expand your scope of Chinese food.

Martin Yan—someone with a foot in both worlds—has done much to throw some weight behind that elusive drive to bring more traditional, authentic Chinese foods to the West, and he shared some recipes the other day to honor the new year.

Gong xi fa cai!