Truemors
A key ingredient of lunar new year festivities is of course, the mouth-watering, delicious delectables.
Food is where it's at. While observers to the festivities may think the lion-dance and parades are the bee's knees, happily it's the week-long meals with friends, families and neighbours that truly make the season.
When friends ask how the lunar new year went, they usually ask: "How was it? What did you eat? Where did you go and EAT? Who did you go with to EAT?"
For Koreans, a new year culinary tradition is "떡국" or "Thuk-guk." It's a stew made out of ox-tail stock, garnished with some sliced green onions, beef, and eggs. But what makes the stew is dumplings and sliced rice-cake (similar to hard-mochi).
The sliced rice-cake is the key to dish, as it symbolizes the "new" year. On new year's eve, each family soaks huge batches of fresh rice in water and then takes them to the local Korean "bakery" or rice-shop where they're pounded into the long tubular rice cakes.
The rice-cakes also symbolize longevity, and so it goes that each time you dig into that bowl of thuk-guk on new year's day-morning, you've just gotten one year older.
The simple white rice-cakes also symbolizes purity. Ingesting a bowl of thuk-guk is a huge slew of hail-marys or hopeful new year's resolutions.
How simple and delicious is that!
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