Yusheng or "Raw Dish" is a popular Chinese New Year delicacy in Malaysia and Singapore. Rumour is that 4 master chefs created this version of the dish back in the 1950s. Yu means "fish" but also when pronounced correctly means "abundence" and sheng means "raw" but also means "life".
Yusheng is a raw salad with each ingredient having a symbolic meaning:
- Fish (usually salmon) - abundance or excess through the year
- Pomelo - luck and auspicious value
- Pepper - attracting money and valuables
- Oil and sauces - increasing profits by 10000 times, encourage money to flow in
- Carrots - blessings of good luck
- Green Radish - eternal youth
- White Radish - prosperity in business and promotion at work
- Peanut crumbs - a household filled with gold and silver
- Sesame seeds - a flourishing business
- Deed-fried flour pillows - the whole floor covered with gold
The salad is assembled... you can almost see the anticipation on everyone's faces - what a prosperous year lies ahead! (I am standing with Vanessa, and two people to my left is Maree... so those of you following my stories can put faces to the names!)
Once the salad is assembled, everyone takes turns tossing it in the air shouting Lo Hei which means "tossing luck" until each person has tossed the salad seven times. Since we were tossing the salad at work in the break-out room and using chopsticks, we were all very civilised... however I could imagine things getting a lot more exciting with friends and family around the dinner table!
After the ritual, we ate! The salad tasted beautiful - sweet and crunchy, bitter and soft - a gorgeous blend of flavours and textures!
After hearing that many of my colleagues had already participated in the ritual 4 or 5 times in the 15 day New Year period and knowing how much I enjoyed it, I'll have to take Lehi to experience it next year!
Wishing you all a prosperous, healthy and happy 2009!
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