Big Cities Little Foodies: Tastes of Lunar New Year

From the creators of the Big Cities Little Foodies series, a brand new illustrated children's book titled Tastes of Lunar New Year shows how Lunar New Year foods differ around the world. Unlike other books on the holiday that are focused mostly on Chinese practices, Tastes of Lunar New Year is inclusive of Singaporean, Vietnamese, Malaysian, and Korean traditions too. This playful book introduces 12 unique dishes across different regions, the special meanings behind each dish, and includes 12 zodiac animals to appeal to young readers.

Inspiration

While Lunar New Year is celebrated by many other countries outside of China, food is always central to the festivities. With this book, we hope to give parents and teachers a resource to begin teaching children ages 3-6 about the traditions of Lunar New Year both in their homes and around the world too. We hope to add a different narrative to the genre of children's Chinese New Year books and diversify their libraries.

From Shanghai to Singapore to Seoul, Tastes of Lunar New Year takes readers around the world to experience what a typical New Year dish looks like in each city.

In Shanghai, families enjoy glutinous rice balls (湯圓, Mandarin: tāngyuán) as a dessert, to symbolize reunion and togetherness for the 15th day of the Lunar New Year holiday, also known as Lantern Festival (元宵節, Mandarin: yuánxiāo jié).

In Seoul, families mark the occasion with a dish filled with rice cakes, simmered in a hearty soup (떡국, Korean: tteokguk) to symbolize longevity and welcome another year of life.

In Singapore, families gather around to mix a raw fish salad (魚生沙拉, Mandarin: yú shēng shālā) while shouting greetings. Raw fish (魚生, Mandarin: yú shēng) sounds just like surplus (餘升 Mandarin: yú shēng) so this dish means there will be lots of good things in the new year.

While a family oriented feast focused on unity and abundance, is always key to Lunar New Year, every region celebrates a little bit differently from each other, and we wanted to show the diversity of this holiday.

Author: Cheryl Yao Chepusova, Isabel Foo

Illustrator: Chiang, Mori

ISBN: 9781733820943

Publisher: Little Picnic Press

Weight: 210g

Language: English

Dimensions: 20.3x20.3 cm