The event features the dessert as a symbol of togetherness – the dumplings’ joyous bobbing resembling family members gathered for a celebration, as well as tiny, floating moons.
The word “yuen” (“round”; circularity in Chinese culture emphasises unity and wholeness) is the same as the one used in the phrase “tuen yuen” (“reunite”), and a frequent Lunar New Year greeting is “tuen tuen yuen yuen”, representing the well-wisher’s intentions for you to have a fulfilling reunion with your loved ones.
The tacky texture of glutinous dumplings adds another layer of meaning – namely, that the family unit will always stick together, for better or worse.Don’t blindly call it ‘Lunar New Year’ if the context is clearly Chinese
With family being central to Chinese culture, there is a piece of Han dynasty folklore that conveniently suggests that the origin of tangyuan can be traced to a young dumpling maker in the ancient Chinese city of Changan, named Yuanxiao, who served the emperor and was not allowed to return home to her parents.
She fell into depression and contemplated ending her life by jumping into a well, until one of the emperor’s advisers, Dongfang Shuo, came across the young woman.
In an altruistic move, he devised a plan to reunite her with her parents: since he was also known as a fortune-teller, he concocted a rumour that there would be a devastating blaze in the town on the 15th day of the first lunar month if the God of Fire was not appeased.
The emperor, concerned by the resulting widespread panic, asked Dongfang what they should do.
The adviser suggested that the God of Fire was partial to tangyuan, and that they should task Yuanxiao – the expert maker – and the whole town with making copious amounts of dumplings together as an offering.
At the same time, they should display red lanterns and set off firecrackers to trick the hot-headed deity into thinking that the city was already on fire.
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Of course, the 15th day passed without calamity, and in the call for extra hands to make dumplings, Yuanxiao’s parents were able to come to the town to meet their daughter.
She was celebrated as bringing fortune to the city and the emperor decreed that the tradition should return each year, and be known as Yuanxiao Jie.
Another legend suggests that the original name of tangyuan was “yuanxiao”. That is, until a particularly sensitive emperor by the name of Yuan Shikai demanded it be changed, because the word was a homophone for “remove Yuan [from power]”.
While his suggestion was less creative and more literal, it appears the name stuck, for the most part – swathes of northern and central China still use the original name.
The differentiation could also explain stylistic differences between the two. In southern China, tangyuan are hand-rolled glutinous dough dumplings enrobing a sweet or savoury filling; yuanxiao involves creating a solid sweet stuffing that is then tossed in water and glutinous rice flour repeatedly to build up its layers, giving a drier and chewier dumpling.
Whatever your preference, many suggest that Ningbo (known as Mingzhou during the Song dynasty), in China’s Zhejiang province, is the spiritual home of the country’s best tangyuan.
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The city is renowned for its delicate dumplings typically stuffed with rich black sesame, sugar and lard – and, in Hong Kong, nowhere does it better than Ningbo cuisine specialist Yong Fu.
Here, the hand-rolled tangyuan have such thin and delicate wrappers that the dumplings have an almost translucent appearance, gleaming like the bright side of the moon; the black sesame filling, with its hint of saltiness, flows like quicksand.
Unlike the Cantonese-style tong yuen, which typically pairs the dumplings with a gingery syrup broth, those at Yong Fu are suspended in an austere bowl of hot water, allowing the entire dumpling to shine.
“What makes Ningbo glutinous rice balls special is that the glutinous rice flour must be combined with pure water, so that the outer shell is soft, silky and elastic,” explains chef Liu Zhen.
There are no secret ingredients in Yong Fu’s recipe. “Instead, what we focus on is pursuing the ultimate technique,” Liu says. “For example, the glutinous rice flour is made in the historical way of grinding it with water. As this manual work is, by comparison, more complicated, the output is much smaller.”
While many commercially made tangyuan feature vegetable oils, Liu is adamant about keeping it old school with the use of lard to achieve the silky, flowing state of the black sesame filling.
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“We use only the membrane from caul fat, and peel off the fatty veins. As they melt by the warmth of the hands, they are mixed in with the fillings,” he says, adding that the current version is the result of continued research and development. “The secret is really time and effort.”
Whether it’s in a restaurant or at home, I normally request three tong yuen, each representing a member of my family. It’s perhaps a lovely self-fulfilling prophecy that my soft white kitten, with her black sesame and peanut butter coloured spots, who has brought my parents and me even closer, was named Mochi and Tong Yuen (in Cantonese) when first adopted.
As symbolism goes, there is nothing sweeter.
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