Weddingbee

We’re having our rehearsal dinner double as a Chinese banquet dinner at this restaurant in Richmond. His family took us out for lunch there and in a very un-dimsum-like-but-totally-me-fashion, I got my very own plate of chow-fan Chinese canneloni while everyone else ate happily from all the other dishes on the table.

I don’t have a clue about Chinese traditions, and Mr. Milkshake always plays dumb about it. This led to me asking several Asian friends what exactly happens at a Chinese wedding - except this asking took place in college and so their immediate response was - you guys are getting married? And at the time, we weren’t, so it was a little embarassing. But now the wonders of the internet have made things clear! The following exerpt is from chinabridal.com:

Certain types of food are commonly served at the Chinese wedding banquet, which include fish, roast suckling pig, pigeon, chicken cooked with red oil, lobster and desert bun with lotus seeds stuffed inside. The pronunciation of fish is the same as “abundance”, meaning the newlyweds will have plentiful of wealth. Roast suckling pig is usually served whole, a symbol of the bride’s purity (virginity). Pigeon implies peaceful future. Chicken also means phoenix, cooked in red oil to symbolize the wish for a prosperous life ahead for the newlyweds. Lobster is literally called “dragon shrimp” in Chinese. Having lobster and chicken together at wedding banquet indicates that the dragon and the phoenix are hormones together, and the Yin and Yang elements in this family is balanced.

I was happy to find out that his mom wants to have a dinner that supports sustainability, ie no shark fin soup and no king crab. Which to a person like me, who was not exposed to ethnic foods of any sort growing up and knew nothing of Chinese food but chow mein and sweet and sour pork (hence my own personal dimsum dish, above), is fantastic! This attitude probably stemmed from her volunteer work at the Vancouver Aquarium, and it was cute to see her start her very own blog. I ended up illustrating a couple of her posts which were evidence of her nervousness at first.