While Asian immigrants and descendants plan for the world-celebrated Lunar New Year, a network of suppliers in the USA works tirelessly to guarantee fresh produce and specialty food for the families that will enjoy the traditional holiday at home.
The Lunar New Year, also known as Spring Festival, is a two-week long festivity which traditionally reunites Asian families across the world to celebrate life, pray for ancestors, and honor deities.
In several Asian countries such as China, Vietnam, Korea, Singapore, and Tibet, one’s behavior throughout this celebration will define their luck for the entire year, which explains the abundance of rituals and the generosity of the offers and gifts. During the Spring Festival, food also assumes a deeper meaning, being desired not just for their taste, but for what they symbolise.
“Every fruit brought into the household has some kind of meaning that will essentially bless your house for the whole year. A must have is cherimoya, young coconut, papaya, and mango. Together, in this particular order, there is a play on words – “Cau dua du xoai” in Vietnamise means “Pray for Enough to Use”, evoking abundance of money, food, health and happiness, or whatever “enough” means to you”, says vietnamise descendant and SGS Produce Commodities Manager Aimie Nguyen. Boxes of varied special fruits represent a traditional way to gift family and friends.
In the Chinese culture however, oranges symbolise happiness and prosperity, while mandarins symbolise luck. Apples represent safety, and the golden color of gold kiwi and persimmon symbolise the metal gold, bringing good fortune to those who offer and eat them. Every Asian culture has particular symbolism to each fruit and/or the form in which they are offered. The common denominator is the abundance and variety of fruits, especially the round, gold and red ones.
Along with the above mentioned oranges, mandarin, apples, coconut, mango, papaya, gold kiwi, and cherimoya, other exotic varieties representing the cyclic nature of life can be displayed and used in prayer offerings in the Lunar New Year. Carole Shandler, the President of Shapiro-Gilman-Shandler Co (SGS Produce), identified some of the trending fruits for this celebration in the USA:
· Yellow and Red Dragon Fruit
· Black Watermelon
· Soreli Gold Kiwi
· June plums
· Star Apple Fruit
· Dino Melon
· Egg Fruit
During the Lunar New Year (in the past mistakenly known as Chinese New Year), hundreds of millions of people board on trains and planes to be with their families, resulting in the largest human migration in the world ( seven times as many travellers as our national Thanksgiving ). With the pandemic travel sanctions though, the Asian-American communities celebrating locally will be able to count on reliable food distributors such as SGS Produce to have authentic festive products, but safe at home.
