Chinese Feasts & Festivals: A Cookbook

Chinese food has claimed a permanent place at the American table, but less is known about the cuisine's more formal aspects. Chinese Feasts & Festivals brilliantly addresses this gap in a gorgeous, full-color recipe book.

It is often said that the Chinese live to eat. Happily, the Chinese calendar is bursting with joyous occasions and numerous festivals that call for eating, entertaining, and making merry, as well as for paying homage to the gods and ancestors. As a result, the foods served at these times are a combination of flavors and symbols intended to invoke wealth, happiness, luck, and prosperity?and eating them is both an earthly pleasure and a spiritual celebration.

Divided into two sections, respectively detailing feasts and festivals, Chinese Feasts & Festivals explains the significance of each dish and shares a delicious recipe for its preparation. author and illustrator S. C. Moey documents the multitude of dishes served at a traditional Chinese feast, as well as the specialties prepared to celebrate the year's most important festivals, including the Dragon Boat Festival, the Mooncake Festival and, of course, Chinese New Year. Lovers of Chinese cuisine and cookbooks will enjoy reading this delightful, beautifully illustrated volume?and be inspired to create a feast that will dazzle both mortals and gods. Recipes include:

• Drunken Chicken
• Five Spice Rolls
• Yangzhou Fried Rice
• Chinese Hot Pot
• Sweet Red Bean Pancakes
• New Year's Cakes