Symbolic food a key ingredient

Industrial and food designers Amanda Huynh and Mandy Chang launched Edible Projects in 2014, using it to elevate the familiar foods of their youth and introduce them to a new audience.

For this year’s Temple Fair at Sun Yat-Sen Garden on Feb. 10, the duo will be serving their take on tang yuan, glutinous rice balls usually stuffed with black sesame filling, a popular lunar new year dessert associated with reunion and togetherness.

“We would enjoy them with our families as kids though we didn’t understand the meaning of eating certain foods,” said Huynh, who remembers her grandma making trays of the rice balls for family celebrations in Lethbridge, Alta. “Now we’re grown and wanting to reconnect with our traditions that have become important to us.”

Their version skips the lard and offers vegan, gluten-free tang yuan in white, pale grey and darker grey (which incorporates some of the black sesame into the dough) drizzled with a longan-honey infusion with osmanthus.

“When they’re combined those flowers look like gold specks on the rice balll," said Huynh. The dish is then topped with a lotus root for texture.

With all the food to choose from, here’s one last bit of advice: Don’t be afraid to overdo it. Make a lot. Order a lot. Because it’s more than OK to have leftovers.

“It’s appropriate to have leftovers,” said Sung. “It means there’s an abundance of food that’ll overflow into the new year.” chchan@postmedia.com twitter.com/cherylchan