Timeless, Yet Revolutionary: Consistency: Now, here is where it gets rather interesting Main CNY goodies are always a constant despite the years that pass by.
Seems like again the Lunar New Year is around the corner and Asian families are gearing up for the pinnacle of this season, which is the food! Well, nothing could symbolize CNY sweets more appropriately than these pineapple tarts – original pineapple tarts, pineapple tarts in the form of cookies with modern twists.
Nonetheless, it appears that there has been a shift in the way that people around CNY treats behave and perceive it. New brands, new tastes, new forms, and new themed advertisements rejuvenate the common snack every year. When it comes to foods consumed in CNY the foods we have today are quick rhymes to the foods consumed decades ago by our grandparents. Possessing a box of Chocolate CNY cookies, stylish tin plated premium butter cookies and nyonya kuih would definitely be impossible for earlier generations.
Not only the snacks have become different but literally every aspect of having them has changed as well. Traditionally, festive delicacies were painstakingly made by female members of the family before CNY days in advance. Now, it’s almost effortless for the young generations born and alive in the cities to order, pick up ready-made delicious meals from the premium store-bought convenience that had once generated optimal kitchen creations that the busy dual-income families never had the time nor the skills to cook.
But, there is one component that has persisted in spite of the latest technological advancements of the years past. Traditional snacks includes the old fried sugee cookies till the new trend of sea salt caramel rolls, CNY snacks, for me, still bring back the childhood memories as well as the sweetness of family relationship.
A Bite of the Past
Just walk into any supermarket anytime January and you’ll be welcomed by shops full of CNY snacks in bright red and gold containers. Yet long before we are able to scroll through such colourful images, homemade CNY goodies involve hand- made processes over days and weeks.
For preceding generations, preparing these sort of labor intensive snacks was considered as occupational therapy for young women for wife bestowed. Women especially mothers and grandmothers would teach their young daughters these foods and how best to prepare them as well as the various shapes to be given to these foods. That is; it was particularly difficult to stuff glutinous rice into lotus seed or bean pastes to form kuih chang. It took a lot of practice to create the flower-shaped impressions using cookie molds in the pineapple tarts as well.
The satisfaction gained from having formed dozens of cookies or kuih, was the considered the best. More satisfying was the thought of the recipients pampering on these treats you painstakingly prepared for them.
During 1940’s-1960’s with increasing prosperity and move to urbanisation, Cantonese bakeries exhibiting the baked goods in glass-fronted bays became the one-stop CNY snacks shop. People remember queuing for hours just to pack up superior groceries under the ‘old-brand’ names such as Tai Thong or Tong Heng.
At that time, sugar and lard were considerably cheaper than labour — so snacks were extra sugary and buttery. Coconut was also preferred than better nuts such as almonds or macadamia. Whereas pale and plain surfaces meant nothing and bright hues, and careful drawing were of prime importance. Imagining colourful gradated fuchsia sugee cookies and nyonya kuih delicacies sculpted into specially carved art pieces.
From Strictly Home Made to Gourmet Food
Main changes in Singapore The increase in wealth in Singapore influenced the family structures and gender roles. The education status of females increased and women started to enter the labor force from 1980s. It was incumbent on fewer daughters to have the time, skill or interest to learn from-scratch CNY baking.
Specialized bakeries were quick to respond to the homemade cookie wants from non-existent amongst the modern working urban households. Most stand alone clothing retains its vintage nature and many continue to be adored for their genuinely retro sweets. The scene of Chinese New Year goodies being sold has been hence taken over by big players like Bengawan Solo, Breadtalk and Awfully chocolate.
Informed by the internationalization of the baking sector, these industry pioneers have brought to the CNY snacks better quality ingredients, refined geometries and sophisticated flavours enhancing the bengbeng and kuih to gourmet foods.
Say good bye to the home made sugee cookies; welcome underside florentines that come with candied fruits and roasted nuts. It’s a world away from the old-style banana cakes made with margarine, and now on the supermarket shelves there are the chocolate-dipped banana loaf cakes infused with Madagascan vanilla. Rather than simply having pineapple jam centres, we now have centres that have flavourings such as earl grey tea, sea salt caramel or passionfruit.
Traditionally nyonya kuih has also not been left behind and most of them have been elaborated. Stores such as Janice Wong and Cat & the Fiddle also get a good following because of their fusion kuih where the common ones consists of milo dinosaur or bandung. As reason-ably decorative as small sculptures, these could not be more dissimilar to the primal forms that define old-world kuih.
The simple cookie string that bridges one generation with another
Over the years of progression and advancing technology we have seen the commercialization of CNY snacks but it is still rich in its soul. The very first is the homemade pineapple tarts which your mom used to prepare during your childhood years. The linker tastes take you back in time, as clear as a scene from the Wes Anderson’s video.
And as you stand and wait for your turn to pick up the artisanal tea cookies that you have pre-ordered, or the designer nyonya kuihs you bid for, that childlike happiness is felt. Indeed the now the treats are better amp; better served; yet they instantly communicate CNY as it was only in childhood.
But whet ever form the snacks take, it more or less remains hugely relevant as a sacrosanct rite that brings families together during such festivals. As much as the wedding cake may often be bought from a bakery, bringing meals to people is love. The concept of care is not set aside.
Sweet snacks in China continue to symbolize new opportunities and new year’s day experiences. Symbolically their round form symbolizes reunion of family – togetherness and their sweetness is life’s blessings that we share.
When you are gearing up for this year’s CNY, remember to also remember that though things have changed over the years in such diverse fields as technology and even gender then know that not everything has changed. We can and do modify our traditions over the years, but the core of them remains uncompromised. In an unadulterated way, the originally lunar New Year should be celebrated several notches higher because the soul of food lovingly prepared in celebrating the yearly Chinese New Year retains the historical Chinese value system. This, I believe, is all that one requires in order to make modifications now and the future looks very sweet now.
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