Nowadays, though people may not regard meat as important or as scarce as it was before, having such a “hard dish”(硬菜yìng cài)—a dish of meat only—is a deep-rooted tradition of Spring Festival food. 

 

The 26th day of the last month in the Chinese lunar calendar (today) is a big day for meat lovers. This is the day to slaughter pigs, to cut meat and to make an important stewed pork dish—hongshaorou (红烧肉, stewed pork in soy sauce). (Purchase the newest issue of The World of Chinese to learn how to make hongshaorou!)

In the old days, families were usually poor and couldn’t afford to eat meat all year round. Many saved what little money and meat they had for the most important days of the whole year—Spring Festival. As a result, meat became a popular food for Chinese New Year and this tradition hasn’t faded at all. Today, people eat meat all year round, but it doesn’t stop them from eating it during Spring Festival, too!

Some call this tradition “slaughtering pigs”(杀猪), which refers to those farmers who possess livestock to eat, while others call it “cutting meat”(割肉) , which applies for those who can only buy meat at the market. In olden days, the weight of meat people could afford was determined by the harvest that year. The better the harvest, the more meat they could afford to buy, and the prouder they would be.

The delicious smell of stewed meat wafted through the alleys. Though people would not buy a large amount of meat, they might cook it into a very large meal. Kids and adults who labored in the fields were allowed to have some meat before Spring Festival day just to satisfy their craving for the then-scarce food. The rest of dish would be saved for the meal on Spring Festival Eve (年夜饭 nián yě fàn). Hongshaorou was the most valuable dish on the table and it can be prepared beforehand which is convenient for housewives.