The Lunar new year is only into its 9th day and I have been feasting for 5 out of those 9 days. OMG!! And I have already "Lou Hei-ed" 5 times!! There'll be another session tonight and on Sunday night. This year sure "Huat" ah!!
Every CNY, the Yusheng is one of the dish that I always look forward to. If prepared correctly, the shredded vegetables will be very crunchy and with the addition of the sun dried oranges, red pickled ginger and jelly fish amoung other ingredients laced with the plum sauce, the resultant cold, crunchy, slightly sweet slightly sour mix of ingredients is delightfully refreshing and makes for a wonderful appetizer.
Yusheng , yee sang or yuu sahng (simplified Chinese: 鱼生; pinyin: yúshēng), or Prosperity Toss, also known as lo hei (Cantonese for 撈起 or 捞起) is a Teochew-style raw fish salad. It usually consists of strips of raw fish (most commonly salmon), mixed with shredded vegetables and a variety of sauces and condiments, among other ingredients. Yusheng literally means "raw fish" but since "fish (鱼)" is commonly conflated with its homophone "abundance (余)", Yúshēng (鱼生) is interpreted as a homophone for Yúshēng (余升) meaning an increase in abundance. Therefore, yusheng is considered a symbol of abundance, prosperity and vigor.
While versions of it is thought to have existed in China, the contemporary version is created and popularised in Singapore in the 1960s amongst the ethnic Chinese community and its consumption has been associated with Chinese New Year festivities in Singapore as well as in neighbouring Malaysia. In Singapore, government, community and business leaders often take the lead in serving the dish as part of official functions during the festive period or in private celebrity dinners. Some have even suggested that it be named a national dish.
Yusheng is often served as part of a multi-dish dinner, usually as the appetizer due to its symbolism of "good luck" for the new year. Some would consume it on Renri, the seventh day of the Chinese New Year, although in practice it may be eaten on any convenient day during Chinese New Year (1st to 15th Day).
The base ingredients are first served. The leader amongst the diners or the restaurant server proceeds to add ingredients such as the fish, the crackers and the sauces while saying "auspicious wishes" (吉祥话 or Jíxiáng Huà) as each ingredient is added, typically related to the specific ingredient being added. For example, phrases such as Nian Nian You Yu (年年有余) are uttered as the fish is added, as the word Yu (余), which means "surplus" or "abundance", sounds the same as the Chinese word for fish (yu, 鱼).
All diners at the table then stand up and on cue, proceed to toss the shredded ingredients into the air with chopsticks while saying various "auspicious wishes" out loud, or simply "撈起, 撈起". It is believed that the height of the toss reflects the height of the diner's growth in fortunes, thus diners are expected to toss enthusiastically.Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusheng
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