#food-traditions

#food-traditions

Gravy runs in my veins. Tomato gravy. The kind that starts out at 8 a.m. on a stovetop and is still gently bubbling away come 5 p.m., slippery with fat from meatballs and sausages braised to unparalleled levels of tenderness. I am only half Italian, but it is certainly the louder half, descended from uncles who pounded a dinner table to punctuate a sentence, a grandfather who made wine in his basement, and a grandmother who wielded a wooden spoon like a scalpel in the kitchen and a cudgel everywhere else.

Lunar New Year, also known as Chinese Lunar New Year and Spring Festival, is one of the world's biggest holidays. The 15-day celebration is not only observed in China, Singapore, Malaysia, and other Asian countries but by 2 billion people worldwide. That said, there are other Asian countries with their own, distinct Lunar New Year traditions, and like China's, they've been around for thousands of years.

"Homecoming, church picnics, fish fries - they all share the same music, food and cadence as Juneteenth," said Nicole Taylor, author of 'Watermelon and Red Birds'.