Lunar New Year — Chinese New Year, or the Spring Festival — is the most important holiday of the year across much of East Asia, and fish sits at the centre of the table for a reason that is part language and part hope. Here is the symbolism, the traditions, and how to cook it.
How the date is decided
Celebrated in China for thousands of years, the Lunar New Year is set by a calendar that combines the cycles of the moon with the Earth's orbit around the sun. Because of that, it does not fall on a fixed Gregorian date: it lands on the new moon that falls between 21 January and 20 February, which is why the holiday moves by several weeks from year to year.
The public holiday runs seven days, from New Year's Eve through the sixth day of the new year, though celebrations traditionally continue to the Lantern Festival on the fifteenth day.
The zodiac
The Lunar calendar cycles through twelve zodiac animals — rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog and pig. Layered over that is a cycle of five elements: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Because twelve animals and five elements take sixty years to return to the same pairing, each combination — the Wood Dragon, the Fire Horse — comes around once a lifetime.
Holiday traditions
Celebrations begin the night before the holiday, much like New Year's Eve elsewhere. The holiday is centred on welcoming in the good and clearing out the old: families sweep the house before the new year arrives, then put the brooms away so the new year's luck is not swept out with the dust. It is a time to honour ancestors, drive off bad spirits, and hope for an abundant year.
Typical celebrations include lion and dragon dances, temple fairs, flower markets, and red envelopes — hongbao — filled with cash. The New Year's Eve dinner, shared the night before the turn of the year, is treated as the most important meal of the year and the occasion for a family reunion.
Why fish
Food carries several layers of symbolism at Lunar New Year: what a dish's name sounds like when spoken, how it is prepared, and how it is served all matter.
Fish is among the most important dishes on the table because of a pun. The Chinese word for fish, 鱼 (yú), sounds the same as 余 (yú), meaning surplus or abundance. Eating fish at the New Year dinner invokes the phrase niánnián yǒu yú — 年年有余 — "may you have a surplus year after year."
The symbolism goes further than the word. The fish is traditionally served whole, head and tail intact, to represent a good beginning and a good end to the year. In many households it is deliberately not finished, so that a surplus literally remains at the end of the meal. Placement matters too: the head is customarily pointed toward the eldest or most honoured guest at the table.
Regional traditions vary. In northern China, the star is often jiaozi — dumplings filled with vegetables, meat or seafood, folded into the shape of old gold ingots. In southern and coastal China, feasts tend to be more elaborate, with whole fish as the centrepiece.
Cooking fish for the New Year
One of the most traditional preparations is a steamed prosperity fish — whole fish steamed with ginger and scallion, finished with hot oil and soy. You can make a traditional version with our Wild Alaska Cod or Wild Pacific Halibut.
If a whole fish is not practical, the flavours travel well to fillets:
- Ginger Miso Glazed Salmon Rice Bowl
- Miso-Marinated Black Cod (Sablefish)
- Teriyaki Sablefish
- Simple King Salmon en Papillote
- Honey Garlic Glazed Sablefish with Roasted Broccoli
We love the tradition of eating one fish on New Year's Eve and another on New Year's Day — a wish for surplus carried from one year into the next.
The rest of the table
Other traditional foods carry their own meanings. Nian gao, a sticky rice cake, sounds like "higher year" and stands for growth and advancement. Tang yuan, round rice-flour dumplings filled with sweet bean or nut paste, take their meaning from their shape — roundness for family togetherness. Laba congee, made with rice, beans, peanuts, dried fruit, lotus seeds, nuts and sugar, is eaten in the run-up to the holiday.
If you celebrate Lunar New Year, or you are simply inspired to cook this way, we would love to see it — tag us @premiercatch or email info@premiercatch.com. Shop our wild seafood for the table.
年年有余 (Niánnián yǒu yú): may you always have more than you need.