A traditional feast's new tastes

Younger crowds

Young people are increasingly turning to online shopping for their New Year purchases. The New Year Shopping Festival on Tmall and JD kicked off on Wednesday, accompanied by corresponding promotions on livestreaming platforms like Douyin and Kuaishou.

From a special cognac edition for the Year of the Dragon from France, and deep-sea fish oil from Norway, to local delights such as Xinghualou brand pastries, Altay white-spotted dogfish, and Chagan Lake winter-caught fathead fish, a range of global products is already available on Tmall in readiness.

In mid-January, Tmall unveiled a report on the flavor trends of the 2024 Tmall New Year Shopping Festival, revealing that over half of the users placing orders for New Year goods on Taobao were born after 1995, and are taking on the role as decision-makers for family New Year goods.

Zhang Peng, the head of the food and fresh produce industry at Tmall, explains that New Year's dinners organized by the post-1995 generation tend to include more new varieties compared to traditional hometown flavors.

More cross-regional cuisines are making their way to the table. For example, people from Zhejiang love to buy Inner Mongolian lamb, and individuals from southern regions are also developing a taste for northeastern fish, Zhang says.

Well-known, time-honored brands are also stepping up their game with a diverse range of traditional food gift boxes.

Huguosi Snack's flagship store, for instance, has put together a New Year's gift box featuring 10 classic Beijing snacks. This year, they've also introduced special pastries adorned with motifs like dragons, fish and symbols of prosperity.

Yuhuatai Restaurant in Beijing is offering a 268-yuan ($37) New Year combo that includes a delightful assortment of specialties such as jujube cake, a steamed bun assortment, rose buns and golden fish cake.

While the Feidachu Fried Pork with Chili restaurant chain is open for business as usual during this year's Spring Festival, serving authentic Hunan cuisine to customers nationwide, they've also introduced a special Chinese New Year gift box that blends food with cultural elements. It includes festive items like couplets, red envelopes, desk calendars and small couplet fridge stickers — all common elements of the Spring Festival. Renowned calligrapher Luo Jieliang has written the couplets, and there are nine red envelopes symbolizing the nine sons of the dragon.

The gift box is adorned with the Chinese character fu (blessing) on the front, and comes with a hook, making it easy to hang up as a decorative piece with the character fu proudly displayed.

Fengtian Restaurant in Shenyang, Liaoning province, known for its northeastern Chinese cuisine, has introduced two gift boxes featuring traditional northern Chinese New Year delicacies.

In the smoked, stewed items gift box, there are specialties like smoked, stewed pork knuckle, whole chicken, pig trotters and pig ears. Northeastern cuisine involves stewing meat in soybean sauce before it is smoked to give it a distinctive flavor.

After marinating in sauce, the pork knuckle is placed on a rack, and sugar and pine needles are placed on the bottom of the pot. As the pot is heated, the smoky aroma of sugar and pine needles infuses the pork knuckle. "Northeast China boasts a range of sauces, with each city in Liaoning having its unique taste," Ren Pangbo, the general manager, explains.

The pastry gift box includes six pastries like beef-tongue cakes, handmade oven pastries and walnut crisps. Luguo, or "oven pastries", are square, with a crispy outer layer, and their name comes from the baking process in an oven.

"Oven pastries are a traditional northeastern treat made from simple ingredients like eggs, flour, sugar, oil, baking soda and sesame. Since they're rare nowadays, we've combined various traditional pastries into a gift box, allowing customers to savor childhood memories," Ren says.