Rare Lunar New Year fare makes it to big screen

The feature-length film A Bite of China: Celebrating the Chinese New Year will hit theaters on Jan 7.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Anyone curious to know about lesser-known Chinese New Year dishes could find the answers in an upcoming culinary documentary.

A Bite of China: Celebrating the Chinese New Year, a feature-length film, will hit the theaters across the mainland on Jan 7.

Just like a gourmet expedition, the movie showcases diverse, colorful dishes cooked only in the days surrounding China's Lunar New Year, the time for family reunions.

An old tradition holds that nianyefan (the Chinese New Year eve family dinner) is the most significant meal of the year. Residents in rural or remote areas, where they still follow the tradition that is disappearing in big cities, usually start preparations for the meal around a month in advance.

"It is a grand ceremony to celebrate the harvest of the year. The dinner sees the best ingredients cooked in the most complex fashion," says a quote from the book also called A Bite of China: Celebrating the Chinese New Year, released as a spin-off of the movie.

Fans of the hit TV series A Bite of China - one of the domestic shows most well-known to Western viewers - will be glad to know that the crew that made the TV series is also the one behind the big screen production.

The film's director, Chen Lei, tells China Daily that the crew put in four times the effort they would typically do in a TV show to make the film.