吃货泪流满面推荐，盘点各地年夜饭中最重要的一道菜！

As a gathering place for the Tujia people, Zhangjiajie preserves the traditional customs and foods of this minority group.
湘西是土家族的聚集地之一，因此这里的人们沿袭了土家族的节日传统。

Zhang Wenjuan, a college student abroad in Italy, won’t be home for Spring Festival but will miss the stewed pig’s feet on her family’s dinner table.张文娟在意大利求学，今年春节将在海外度过。她最想念的，是家里年夜饭桌上的炖猪蹄。

“I’ve never thought about why before, but we always have pig’s feet for festival dinners,” Zhang said, adding that it might be because pig’s feet signifies making a fortune in the coming year, according to Chinese traditions.
她说：“我以前从没想过为什么，但年夜饭总是有猪蹄。或许是因为猪蹄在中国文化中寓意着‘发财就手’，当然最重要的是好吃。”

In Zhang’s hometown, the special thing about New Year’s Eve dinner is that people finish it before sunrise, a tradition known as  “chasing the New Year”.
在文娟的老家，过年最有特色的不是吃什么，而是什么时候吃。老乡们都要赶在除夕当天的太阳升起前吃完年夜饭，并称之为“赶年”。 

Though not as famous as spiral shell rice noodles, stewed chicken with spiral shells is a must for reunion dinners among the Liuzhou people.

年关来临，每家每户都会拿出最美味的当地土鸡，做一道浓香满溢的螺蛳鸡。柳州酸笋特有的酸鲜和螺蛳的风味相辅相成，构成了柳州人独特的记忆。  

Wei Liyi, a graduate student at Tsinghua University, has been waiting a whole year for a dish of spiral shells, which is a symbol of his hometown.
清华大学研究生韦力铱和其他土生土长的柳州人一样，是吃着螺狮粉长大的，他在等待年夜饭上那一盘螺狮鸡。

“Though it stinks with the smell of sour bamboo shoots, it really tastes good. We just can’t stop when eating it,” Wei said, adding that he’s happy to see more and more authentic spiral shell food shops in Beijing.
他说：“螺狮鸡也有柳州酸笋的臭味，吃完身上会有很重的味道，但还是让人欲罢不能，那是一代代传承下来的乡味。”看到北京街头正宗的柳州螺狮店越来越多，他感到很开心。

Crunchy and crispy, the traditional Beijing-style fried pastry made from flour and sesame is a perfect snack that goes with wine and a must-have appetizer for Spring Festival dinner in typical Beijing households.
排叉儿，是北京的一种传统面食，由面混合芝麻经油炸而成。香脆可口，是极佳的下酒菜，在传统北京家庭的年夜饭中也通常是必不可少的开胃小菜。

“I’m always greeted with the fragrance of ‘Pai Cha-er’ each time I go to my grandma’s home for the Chinese New Year’s Eve dinner. It is a perfect ‘taste of Spring Festival”, said Cai Mengxiao, a woman who grew up in Beijing.
“每次回到奶奶家过年，一进门就能闻到排叉儿的香味儿，这对于我来说就是一种年味儿”，在北京长大的蔡梦霄如是说。

“Young people now bother less and less to make traditional homemade food. It just came into my mind that I’ll learn to cook Pai Cha-er this year.”

“现在年轻人对传统自制美食的热爱越来越少，之前没想到，但今年我要学着做排叉儿”。 

The indispensable dish for the Spring Festival dinner in Wuhan is usually made by first blending minced pork, lotus roots and various seasonings, including salt, soy sauce and wine.
糯米圆子是湖北省武汉市年夜饭必不可少的一道美食。

Deng Xin, a 23-year-old woman studying at Beijing Language and Culture University, said that it’s fun to make individual balls of roughly consistent size wrapped with sticky rice, and then finally frying and steaming them.

23岁的武汉女孩邓欣介绍道，传统的糯米圆子，是先把猪肉馅，藕和盐、酱油和料酒等调料混合并搅拌均匀，加入糯米，然后搓成大小一致的圆子，过油炸后再入笼蒸软。她说，仅是这个制作的过程就很有意思。

“Yuanzi (the Chinese pronunciation of the dish) always represents our best wishes for Tuanyua, ‘family reunion’ in Chinese. In our school there are a great many foreigners and I will invite foreign friends to my hometown to have an authentic taste of the Sticky Mariko some day,” said Deng.
邓欣说：“圆子代表着我们对家庭团圆的美好期盼”。目前邓欣在北京语言大学学习，如有机会，她也很想邀请自己在学校中的外国朋友到武汉品尝地道的糯米圆子。

While Tangyuan (rice dumplings) are rather a dispensable option, “Yik Tao Tsoi” (dish with Good Intentions) is customary for Macao reunion dinners on the eve of Spring Festival.
若说汤圆在澳门的年夜饭中可有可无，意头菜则是不可或缺的必备佳肴。

Consisting of multiple ingredients, the dish is like a cornucopia, with each kind of food representing a specific good wishThe cauliflower, “Fat Tsoi” in Cantonese, for instance, is homophonic to another word that means “getting rich”, to demonstrate people’s wish to make a fortune. “Hou Si”, dried seafood, sounds quite like “hao shi” in Chinese, which denotes “lucky things”, so it always makes an appearance at the reunion dinner with the hope that something good will happen in the next year.
意头菜中有多种食材，仿似一个聚宝盆，其中每一样食材都代表人们的一种“好意头”。比如花菜，在粤语中的发音类似“发财”，表达了人们开源进宝的美好愿望。而蠔士（海鲜干货），则有谐音“好事”，代表人们对来年行大运的希冀。



Hoi Kaweng, a woman from Macao  who works at the Bank of China, is busy preparing the food needed to make the “Dish with Good Intentions”. “Actually, the process of preparation also provides us the opportunity for a family reunion and it is always brimming with love and harmony”.
许嘉颖是土生土长的澳门“土著”，目前在中国银行工作。近两天她正忙着准备年夜饭意头菜的食材。“我和姐姐通常会帮着妈妈一起准备意头菜必备食材，尤其是蠔士，我们需要提前几天把海鲜晾干腌好让它充分入味”，嘉颖说，“准备的过程中家人们也可以一起聊聊天说说话，感觉特别和美幸福”。

New Year cake is popular in many places in China. But a cake from Northern Shaanxi province is special because it’s made of millet powder.
和南方的年糕不同，陕北的年糕是用小米做成的，而小米是陕西的特产农作物之一。

Gao Ge, a young man living in Beijing who grew up in the old revolutionary base area Yan’an, is proud of the traditional cake in his hometown.
高歌在陕北革命老区长大，现在在中粮工作。谈起春节，最让他难忘的是自家做的小米年糕。

“My grandparents and my parents make millet cake every year before Spring Festival, which is even more important than dumplings for our family,” Gao said, adding that young people nowadays are mostly buying instead of making millet cakes.
他说：“我的爷爷奶奶、我父母都会做年糕，每年春节前都会做，在年夜饭上，小米黏糕的地位一点都不比饺子差。”高歌说，现在的年轻人，一般没有时间精力自己做年糕了，但在市场上很容易买到。他也担心，家乡人的这个手艺将慢慢地被淡化遗忘了。 

The traditional food for Uyghur family feasts is one of the most favored dishes for the reunion dinner in Korla, a town in Bayingolin Mongol autonomous prefecture.
用面粉、羊肉、洋葱等做成的“匹提尔芒达”，俗称烤包子，是维吾尔族传统家宴食品。

Cooked in clay roasters, roasted stuffed bun is rarely seen in modern cities. Before every Spring Festival, however, Ghoulam Mutalep’s grandmother will go back to the village and make roasted buns with stuffing.
制作烤包子需要在囊坑里烤，这对于居住在城里的人来说已经比较困难了。但是，每逢诺鲁孜节，乌拉木•木塔里甫的奶奶都会回到农村，亲自和面、拌馅儿，用老家的馕坑给亲人烤上包子。



“It’s more than a stuffed bun, but a symbol of our tradition and culture and my grandma’s love,” Ghoulam said.乌拉木说：“每到过节，我都特别期待吃上奶奶亲手做的烤包子，因为这里面既有亲情，又有传统，让我们了解自己民族的风俗。” 

Mongols live their lives in the prairies in the north of China, where they eat big pieces of mutton with their hands, bold and  unrestrained.
生长在大草原上的蒙古族，千百年来一直把手扒羊肉作为饭桌上的必备佳肴。

Meng Gencang, a Mongolian soldier with the Chinese Armed Police Force, has spent seven Spring Festivals with the army in Beijing.

孟根仓是一名蒙古族武警战士，已经在军营里度过7个春节。

This year, his mother mailed him mutton from Inner Mongolia, teaching him how to boil it with salt and other flavors, so that Meng will be able to share the dish from his hometown with his comrades  on Spring Festival Eve.

今年，他家人寄来了一些羊肉，并教给他炖煮、撒盐、配料、剔肉的方法，他将在异乡和战友们一起享受原汁原味的手扒羊肉大餐。

“In festivals, we drink and eat mutton with our hands from the morning to the evening, and that’s the way we celebrate,” Meng said.他说：“每逢重大节日，牧民们从早到晚聚在一起喝奶酒、吃扒肉，传承着血脉里的粗犷与豪放。” 看到战友们脸上洋溢着的笑容，他感觉如同回到了家一样。

Around Chinese New Year, shoals of mullets swim to the east of Taiwan to escape from chilly winter, providing abundant materialfor a traditional dish in Taiwan - mullet  roe.
在中国春节前后，太平洋的乌鱼会游到台湾岛延安躲避严寒，这也给当地居民带来了美食。



Li Chih-suan from Taipei is now pursuing his PhD degree in Japan. When asked about the dish that he misses most during Spring Festival, he gushed about the steamed mullet roe cooked by his mother. 
李志轩现在在日本读博士，当被问到春节最想念的是什么，“蒜蓉蒸乌鱼子”夺口而出。



“The steamed mullet roe has been the indispensable dish for Spring Festival since I was little. It almost becomes the epitome of my childhood. I can still remember my mom saying that the trick to cooking the dish is to add minced garlic after steaming the roe for 10 minutes. It helps to preserve the original flavor of the roe.”
他说：“从小，蒜蓉蒸乌鱼子就是年夜饭上不可或缺的。我现在还记得妈妈说，做好这道菜的诀窍是要在乌鱼子蒸好后十分钟再加蒜蓉，这会保留乌鱼子自然的鲜香。”

Litchi Meat is the best representative of Fujian Cuisine, which is characterized by sweet and sour flavor.In this dish, pork is cut crosswise, fried and then soaked in tomato sauce. The pork tastes and looks like litchis in this way - hence the name.
味道酸甜，荔枝肉是闽菜最好的代表之一。制法是将猪瘦肉剞上十字花刀，炸后卷缩成荔枝形，佐以番茄酱等调料。

Chen Jieling, now working in Dalian, Northeast China, expressed her fondness for Litchi Meat.
现在在大连工作的陈洁玲表达了对荔枝肉的迷恋。



“Fuzhou abounds in Litchi due to its warm climate. However, after I came to Dalian, a rather cold place compared to Fuzhou, I can rarely taste the Litchis as good as those produced in my hometown. Thanks to my grandma, I’ve learned how to cook Litchi Meat. The dish really comforts me when I’m homesick and miss the litchis in Fuzhou,” she said. 
她说：“福州人很爱吃荔枝肉，应该和气候较热有关。但是我到大连之后，天气冷多了，就没怎么吃过家乡味的荔枝肉。幸好我奶奶教会我做这道菜了，当我想家的时候，能吃到这道菜真的是个安慰。” 

In the past, people from Northeastern China had little food to eat due to the cold weather, so local people kill a home-raised pig to make dishes celebrating Spring Festival. 
过去，由于气候太冷，东北人冬天的食物种类很少，所以就会杀猪烩菜庆祝新年。

Nowadays, although there’s  plenty of food to consume, they are still obsessed with dishes made out of pork. Among them, stewed pickled cabbage with pork and black pudding is the most popular.
如今，那里也是吃什么有什么，但人们还是为猪肉烩菜着迷，特别是酸菜猪肉炖血肠。



Li Yuanbao, a college graduate who just got a good offer in Beijing, came back to his hometown, Harbin, to celebrate his success with “authentic pork cuisine”. 
李元宝今年将研究生毕业，并在年前签下了一份好工作。他刚刚回到哈尔滨，将用一桌杀猪菜和家人一起庆祝。

“Without pork and black pudding, life seems incomplete to me. It’s freezing in the winter in Harbin and this dish can warm your whole body,” he said.“没有猪肉血肠我的人生就不完整，”元宝打趣说，“哈尔滨的冬天真的很冷，但吃上这道菜，就整个身体都暖了。”