The New Year's Eve dinner during the Spring Festival is a meal that arouses the strongest feelings among Chinese people.

The flowery flour buns (Huamo) for Shanxi people, cured meat for Sichuan people, crispy pot for Shandong people, poon choi for Cantonese people... Food is the most important holiday totem for the Chinese people. People's faithfulness to and insistence on food can still be clearly seen from the festival customs that have been passed down from generation to generation. An arduous life on the go in the year is soothed by the New Year's Eve dinner.

The northern New Year's Eve dinner is characterized by "big" while the southern New Year's Eve dinner features "good luck" in all dishes. Which is the better? Of course, the homemade meal comes out top!

1. Never rival with northerners for "big"

When it comes to the New Year's Eve dinner for northerners, one cannot fail to be impressed by the "big," with big containers and large helpings. This heroic spirit of "gulping down meat and wine" is vividly reflected on the New Year's Eve dinner. After all, it is time to treat yourself to the best dishes after a year of hard work.

Pork stew | The festive carnival of northeasterners

Northeast China abounds with products due to its vast Songnen Plain, fertile black land, farming and animal husbandry. Eating a pig is a New Year's Eve dinner ritual unique to northeasterners.

Blood sausage, red-braised pork, shredded pork, braised pork with vermicelli, salted liver, pickled Chinese cabbage with plain boiled pork... Every part of the pig will be utilized with the delicious production methods as a tribute to life.

Throughout the first lunar month, northeasterners enjoy eating the pork stew.