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Chinese New Year and Mardi Gras: Two holidays that look to food for luck

 
Cho Lon Market in St. Petersburg is selling an assortment of sweets for Chinese or Lunar New Year, when they are handed out to grant a “sweet life in the new year.”
Cho Lon Market in St. Petersburg is selling an assortment of sweets for Chinese or Lunar New Year, when they are handed out to grant a “sweet life in the new year.”
Published Feb. 3, 2016

Just in time for the annual new year's resolution relapse comes two holidays focused on the sweeter side of life.

Chinese New Year and Mardi Gras are Monday and Tuesday respectively, and local celebrants have spent the past few weeks preparing to feast like there is no tomorrow.

The point isn't just to satiate. These food traditions rooted in religion also offer those who believe an incentive to eat like a kid again. In both holidays, sweets supposedly bring luck.

Oriental markets across the bay are stocked with treats from ginger candies to dried and sugared coconut — popular snacks and gifts to ring in the Year of the Monkey.

"Lunar New Year is a time for families to come together and eat good food and spend time," said Tuyet Chau, 53, who has worked at St. Petersburg's Cho Lon Oriental Market for 26 years. "In my home country (Vietnam), we cook enough food for three to five days and then just have relatives come (and) visit."

That communal spirit is also present throughout Mardi Gras season and is what makes people gather around the holiday's signature treat, the king cake, said Bonnie Breaux, executive chef at Roux in Tampa.

"We'd have a king cake every week of Mardi Gras and everyone would just get together and enjoy each other's company," said Breaux, who grew up in Lafayette, La. "And I think I've gotten at least one baby every year of my adult life."

Brought from France to New Orleans in the 1800s, king cake is an oval-shaped cross between a coffee cake and a French puff pastry intended to celebrate the Christian event of Epiphany, which marks Jesus showing himself to the three wise men. French bakers traditionally hid a surprise, which is now most commonly a small plastic baby, in the cake before serving it to family and friends.

The person who gets the baby in his or her slice gets to be "king" for a day and has the honor of buying the cake next year, said Breaux, who has bought her fair share of cakes.

"It's seen as lucky to get a baby, and I can't say it's wrong," Breaux said. "I've had so much good fortune in my life I can't say for sure if the king cake had anything to do with it."

Thuan Le, 53, of St. Petersburg plans on stocking up on candies to hand out to relatives to grant them a "sweet life in the new year."

As a volunteer at the Chua Phat Phap Buddhist Temple on 62nd Avenue N in St. Petersburg, she spent a recent weekday preparing vegetables and cleaning dishes for the Lunar New Year Food Festival held Jan. 24, two weeks before the big day to close out the current year.

At the temple that serves St. Petersburg's Vietnamese community, the celebration featured steaming bowls of pho and hearty helpings of long noodle dishes. In Lunar New Year lore, long noodles grant the eater long life — making them a holiday staple for the faithful.

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"We also eat lots of soups, food you can make a lot of and eat for several days," said Chau from Cho Lon Oriental Market.

Chinese or Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, is based on the traditional Chinese zodiac calendar and is celebrated by more than 1 billion people around the world during a 15-day festival. Families will clean their homes to ward off bad luck, set off fireworks to rid their lives of evil spirits and, most importantly, feast on dishes thought to bring longevity and luck to the eaters.

Chau said it's difficult to find local Asian-American families that still uphold all the old traditions, such as not working for days after the new year.

"Most people come and buy fresh fruit like papaya and orange and tangerines or the candy sets we sell, and that's it," Chau said. "It's not like it used to be."

But just because the way the holiday is celebrated is evolving doesn't mean one can pass off a Snickers as an acceptable substitute.

There's still very much a focus on Asian flavor, Chau explained, which is why Cho Lon market buys lotus seeds, winter melon, sliced ginger and melon seed in bulk every year. So much, in fact, that Chinese New Year candy gets its own aisle every January.

Likewise, bakeries and cafes will stock up on king cake ingredients the first week of January to prepare for the busy Mardi Gras baking times that lay ahead.

Alessi Bakery, a Tampa institution, has been selling six to 12 king cakes a day since mid January, with orders expected to increase as Fat Tuesday approaches and brings Mardi Gras season to a close.

"Some country clubs order 30 to 40 cakes for their celebration," said Melissa Maggiore, head of Alessi's cake departments.

Her bakers, who have been making the cakes for several years, ask for special orders at least one day in advance so cakes can be prepared fresh the morning of delivery. Maggiore said her best customers are people looking for dessert for office parties. There are three flavors — cheese, raspberry and apple.

"Cheese is the most popular but I love the raspberry. I guess cheese suits a wider variety of tastes," she said.

Alessi leaves the baby out of the cake, giving the purchaser the option of hiding the possible choking hazard. "We place it visibly in the center outside the cake with green, purple and yellow beads," Maggiore said. "It's up to them if they want bury it."

Dough, a bakery associated with the Datz restaurant group in Tampa, made its own king cakes last year as a menu offering for its Creole restaurant Roux.

But this year, the bakery decided to import straight from the Crescent City to increase the authenticity of the offering, said Gina Moccio, communication and public relations manager for the group. Dough and Roux are selling imported cakes from Gambino's, a New Orleans bakery with 70 years of reputation and customer loyalty.

"It's like the most delicious cinnamon bun you've ever had," said Moccio, who tried her first slice of king cake this year. "I cut a large slice to get some photos and wasn't intending to eat the whole thing, but when I looked up, I'd finished it."

She didn't get the baby, though.

"We'll be selling the cakes whole and by the slice through Fat Tuesday, so I've got time," she said.

Who says you can't eat your way to good luck?

Contact Robbyn Mitchell at rmitchell@tampabay.com.