{Review & Worldwide Giveaway} Chinese Feasts & Festivals: A Cookbook (CLOSED)
Warning: Parameter 2 to wp_hide_post_Public::query_posts_join() expected to be a reference, value given in /home/yirese5/public_html/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php on line 287
Hope everyone had a wonderful Labor Day weekend (that is, the U.S. Labor Day which falls on the first Monday of every Sept). I definitely enjoyed spending my day off here in NYC relaxing with the family.
Speaking of holidays, one thing I really like about a holiday is the food associated to it. In China, almost every festival has its own history and customs which are also reflected by the food served during each of these festivals.
Ever wondered the traditions behind Chinese New Year, or when the next Chinese festival is, and what to serve? You might know the answers off the top of your head if you’ve been living in China, or you might find the answers to these questions from S.C. Moey’s Chinese Feasts & Festivals: A Cookbook.
Traditional Chinese festival cooking is generally considered laborious and time-consuming. However, according to 
Moey, “it is possible to cook for feasts and festivals without breaking one’s back” and she demonstrates that with 56 detailed recipes covering a wide range of popular Chinese festival dishes and corresponding symbolic meaning.
The book also includes a list of vital ingredients used in festival dishes which I find very helpful. This section not only provides a detailed description of each ingredient but also offers substitutes for items that are not readily available in certain areas.
Additionally, if you like books that are visually appealing, you’d enjoy flipping through Chinese Feasts & Festivals: A Cookbook as it turns out that Moey is also an excellent illustrator and her book is filled with beautiful and memorable illustrations.
The bottom line is, if you are a food lover and appreciate the rich Chinese culinary traditions and festivities, you’ll enjoy every page Chinese Feasts & Festivals: A Cookbook has to offer.
Disclosure: this review expressed here is solely based on my personal opinion and I am not being compensated for any of my review.
Mooncake Recipe and Testing Event
The next big event in the Chinese Festival calendar is Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Sept. 27, 2015.
To celebrate the 2015 Mid-Autumn Festival, aka Mooncake Day and provide a direct sneak peek into this cookbook, I will be sharing a mooncake recipe taken from this cookbook in the next post. Please check back in the next day or two.
Additionally, for the first time ever, Yi Reservation will be offering homemade mooncakes for Tri-State-based readers to taste. More details will be included in the upcoming post so please stay tuned!
Worldwide Giveaway (CLOSED)
I am partnering with Tuttle Publishing to give away THREE (3) copies of Chinese Feasts & Festivals: A Cookbook. This contest is open to readers WORLDWIDE!
As the publisher of Chinese Feasts & Festivals: A Cookbook, Tuttle Publishing has published more than 6,000 book focusing on Asian culture from Food & Cooking to Travel Guides, to Asian Literature. To best explore Tuttle’s wide range of titles, please check out their Bestsellers and New Releases.
Giveaway Rules
This giveaway will end on Tuesday, Sept 15, 2015 at 11:59 p.m. EST and is open to readers worldwide! 3 winners will be randomly chosen and announced on this post at the conclusion of the giveaway.
To enter for your chance to win one of three (3) copies of Chinese Feasts & Festivals: A Cookbook, please leave a comment on the bottom of this post answering the following question and then confirm your entry in Giveaway Tools form using your email address (see the form below):
What’s your favorite Chinese festival and the dish(es) associated to this festival?
You can also earn up to six (6) bonus entries:
Like Tuttle Publishing on FacebookLike Yi Reservation on FacebookTweet about this GiveawayFollow Yi Reservation on PinterestPin about this Giveaway on PinterestFollow Yi Reservation on Instagram
To enter the above Bonus Entries, click on the rest of the options and follow the instructions below:
Congratulations to M. Auyeung, C. Jong, and J. Huscusson. You will be contacted shortly with prize claiming details. Thanks everyone for participating!
Thanks for participating. Good luck!
Additional Rules: Prize is limited to one household per copy. All entries will be verified before the winner is confirmed.
Disclosure: this giveaway is sponsored by Tuttle Publishing.
Warning: Use of undefined constant rand - assumed 'rand' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) in /home/yirese5/public_html/wp-content/themes/yireservation/single.php on line 72
Warning: Parameter 2 to wp_hide_post_Public::query_posts_join() expected to be a reference, value given in /home/yirese5/public_html/wp-includes/class-wp-hook.php on line 287
Lunar New Year is my favorite holiday! It’s traditional in my family to eat braised pork shoulder (蹄膀) with meigan cai (梅干菜).
Nastar for Chinese New Year 🙂 Yum!
I love Chinese New Year and eating Jai!
My favorite holiday would be new year’s, but my favorite food is jong ji which I have year round! 😀
Oh, and my favorite dish associated with Chinese New Year’s is the soup with sliced lotus roots, dried oysters, and the fungus that we call hair! Is there a name for this soup?!
Just found your blog and I am loving all the yummy inspiration! I would have to say Winter Solstice and its association with dumplings.
Chinese New Year- dumplings, fish, spring rolls, and niangao
I love zongzi – Dragon Boat Festival
I love zongzi. Dragon Boat Festival
I love having dumplings on Lunar New Year.
Love the mooncake festival cause it means that we will be eating a lot of mooncakes!
Chinese new year and Yu Sheng for the dish
My favourite chinese festival would be lunar new year and the dish that goes with it is my grandmothers deep fried pork balls. I can finish 2 bowls of rice just with those pork balls. In malaysia which is where i live, most chinese families would just go out to buy those tong yuens in supermarket in ready made packets. Same goes with chinese new year, most would dine outside. So that is why my grandmothers deep fried pork balls is so special. It is the only time she cooks with us grand children helping out and the whole family dining at her house, i call it ‘jo nguk’ or ancestors home.
Steamed taro root cake that has been pan fried until brown and crispy !!!
Chinese New Year ~ Egg rolls and sesame seed balls.
I love the autumn festival and moon cakes.
Lunar New Year and dumplings!
The Lantern Festival! I absolutely adore rice dumplings.
Chinese New Year is my favorite holiday, and it even sometimes falls on my birthday! Longevity Noodles is my favorite dish because it’s so fun eating the noodles without breaking them!
Autumn festival and moon cake 🙂
Lion head soup is our favorite. I make it for our annual asian new years celebration
Wishing you a very Happy Mid-Autumn Festival Yi! Your moon cakes look gorgeous! I can’t wait to read your recipe. My favorite Chinese festival is the Chinese New Year and I am really and am able to enjoy all the festivities living here in Hong Kong. I usually make Chinese Radish Cake for all of my friends to celebrate the holiday.
Chinese New Year and Jai.
I have so many favorite festivals I don’t know which to choose! However, since the mooncake festival is around the corner, I shall say it’s a favorite of mine for now as I enjoy making the delicious mooncakes and gifted them to friends and family:D
Dear Yi, i am so sorry i would like to answer and say some thing about chinese traditions but i know almost nothing. The only thing i would say that i hardly try to make chinese cooking that i love so much also with your useful aid. I can do jaozi in different ways and your steamed buns with pork filling that are the best. Regards and best wishes from Italy.
Great giveaway! I really love the chinese cuisine. My best dish is Jiaozi, typical of New Year 🙂
Debora Ferri
debby_f@hotmail.it
My favorite Chinese festival is Dragon Boat Festival and The traditional food on Dragon Boat Festival is zongzi, consisting of triangular-shaped glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaves, said to have been dropped into the river to feed the fish so that they would not feast upon Qu Yuan’s body.
Every year during the Chinese New Year my mom would make the Buddhist feast and explain to us what each item represents bring luck n good fortune to the new year. A great tradition in our family.
Chinese New Year is my favourite Chinese Festival.
I love my mum’s Hainanese chicken rice, sweet and sticky pork belly and Fatt Choy dishes. We get lots of Angpow red packet from family, relatives and friends and also love to watch the traditional Lion dance.
Spring Festival
Eight Treasure Rice
I love white lotus seed mooncake. I’d like to add a hint of (Smithfield) ham, one yolk. Every year say that I am going to buy a mooncake press (form)..one day and if I do, that is what I’d make. My best friend’s grandmother used to belong to a “Mooncake club”. This was similar to a Christmas savings club. A club formed to save for mooncakes during festival time.
The whole family enjoys rice flour balls with coconut syrup tremendously. It is a family tradition to serve this during the winter solstice.
Loving those illustrations in the cookbook so much, thank you.
Chinese New Year — the steamed coconut pudding ,(cake). Yum!
My favorite festival is the Lantern Festival and the sweet dish, tang yuan.
I like the Autumn Festival due to the unique sweet called a “moon cake” and looking forward to seeing your recipe.
Spring Festival
jiaozi ( dumpli8ngs)
Lunar New Year….love the Buddhist Delight dish. Just gives a fresh start to a fresh, new year.
Zongzi (rice dumplings) for Dragon Boat Festival. Addictive and yummy!
Chinese New Year! My mom would always make a feast with duck, chicken and fish on NY’s eve, and then the next night we’d have the vegetarian meal with jai and tofu dishes. Of course the laysees were always a bonus. When I had my own family, I mixed it up. I would have a hot pot meal so we’d all participate in the cooking, and I bought a lionhead so the kids would have to dance for their laysees!
I have many favorite Chinese festivals but the one that sticks out the most is Moon/Harvest Festival. My mom always makes tons of “jung” for each sibling. While I always tell her to call me when it’s time to wrap them, I could never make mine as pretty as hers….I’m too used to hers in terms of style and taste. She puts so many ingredients in there that I love. Well, except for chestnuts. The jungs I buy from outside never compared to her. I look forward to eating them every year.
Besides that, I also miss the “tin lure” aka field snails when we observe the moon while eating the little taro roots. While both “tin lures” and “sax lures” aka rock snails are delicious, I prefer the thin shell ones because the tips of those are easier to chop off than the “sax lures”. My parents’ cooking on that is comparable to restaurant quality. I hope your cookbook had a recipe to cook these snails 😉
I love jiao zi for lunar new year
My favorite festival is Lunar New Years. Although all dishes served are delicious, I have to choose Buddhist Delight which I really, really, like!
Would love to have this book and try out the recipes!
This is a great giveaway! I love your recipes and would love to win this to learn even more Chinese recipes and history.
I forgot add that I love Chinese New Year and just about any food!
Wow this amazing! I would probably buy this book even if I didn’t win!
Mom and I make “joong” in late spring during the Duanwu Festival. Mom’s joong are made with a combination of sweet rice and Cal Rose brown rice for sticky texture and additional nutrition, respectively. She brine-preserves her own chicken eggs and the golden yolks are a part of the savory ingredients which also include marinated pork. The assortment of legumes and beans that get packed between the bamboo leaves are endless, from tiny yellow lentils to big, white lima beans. Shaped and tied neatly with kitchen twine, the joong are steamed for 3-4 hours. One of Mom’s joong’s, are so full of carbs and protein can carry anyone through a half-marathon.
Chinese New Year was always my fav I loved watching the parade in Chinatown NYC as a kid. And the moon cakes!
Although I have never personally celebrated a Chinese festival (I grew up in a place with a substantial Asian influence though), I have always found the Qingming Festival fascinating and full of culture and history. I love the combination of the celebration of grief and sadness (and respect) for the dead and the hope and renewal that the spring brings. Plus. I’m kind of a weirdo and I LOVE cold foods so the idea of a whole festival focusing on cold dishes is awesome! Fried hanju made with rice flour are my favorite (yes, I eat them cold) and of course the little green stuffed rice balls are always good! Oh, and the flower blossom congee too! Mmmmm….
Chinese New Year!! And I love the rice neat cakes and mung bean/ moon cakes!
My fave is the Dragon Boat Festival because i love eating zongzi (rice dumpling)
I like the festival where there’s tong yuan.
My favorite Chinese feast is my birthday because I love noodle
Chinese New Year – dumplings and sichuan noodes
The duck with yellow bean paste sounds fantastic.
My favorite Chinese New Year food is 蛋散 (daan6 saan2 in Cantonese), a type of fried dough. There are two versions, savory and sweet. The sweet type you can get at dim sum places in NYC, but you cannot find the savory type at any restaurant or store. My grandmother used to make hundreds and hundreds by hand, and my favorite part was helping her tie the daan6 saan2. My grandmother has passed away, so I’m trying to carry on the daan6 saan2 tradition, but it’s so difficult to make!
it is so nice to enjoy the malaysian's favourite nasi lemak while in hutan area. how i wish to travel over hutan area for a morning jungle trekking or a picnic with bunch of friends and family. are you from pahang?
Chinese New Year – jai
Chinese New Year – the little oranges. Also the steam whole fish
Chinese New Year – we host a party every year & cook traditional Chinese New Year food for our friends. Fish is the favorite!
Chinese New Year – we host a party every year & cook Chinese food for our friends. One year we have 70 people .
Zongzi for dragon boat festival is my favorite
Yuanxiao or Lantern Festival, with the tangyuan, because I’m a sweet lover and my aunt makes the best ones!
My favorite also is zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival. Years ago I participated in the festival in Flushing. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. I hope my paddling helped save the poet from being eaten!
Nian gao or Mooncakes mm
I also love the list of festivals and food associated. Can’t go wrong with most festival dishes!
Chinese New Year ‘Steamed whole Fish’
eggplant and beef spicy
Chinese New Year is my favourite Chinese celebration. In South Asia there is this special dish called Yu Sheng which everyone eats on the seventh day of the first Lunar month.
Chinese New Year – I love nian gao!
I enjoy eating zongzi or joong.
The Lantern Festival and its associated tangyuan are my favorite.
I think zongzi for the Dragon Boat Festival is my favorite dish of all the festivals, but CNY is my favorite holiday overall!