Feast by the book

An elderly woman in northern China makes huamo, or decorated steamed buns, to celebrate the Lunar New Year.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Famous actor Huang Lei writes that he has spent every Spring Festival in the past four decades in Beijing, where he was born and lives, and recalls the nianhuo, or items that are must-haves to celebrate the Chinese New Year - especially snacks and ingredients for the family feast - have multiplied as the choices and channels to buy them have expanded.

He also tells about how he frantically drove all over Beijing to buy Chinese chives on one Spring Festival Eve to make dumplings. He could only calm down and finally feel secure when he was able to clutch a cluster of the pungent plants.

Without dumplings made with Chinese chives, he writes, a Spring Festival is not Spring Festival.

While dumplings are the holiday's signature food in North China, in the south it's simply essential to have staple foods made with rice, such as New Year cake and other forms of rice cakes.

In its 85-minute length, the film could not present all of the more than 60 types of fare the production crew had captured on camera, and about 20 signature Spring Festival dishes that didn't make the final cut are included in the book, according to co-director Deng. Readers can even cook the rare foods themselves, she says, if they follow the process recorded in the book and its many colorful photos that demonstrate the making and their presentation.