Reunion dinner in my family runs to about eighteen people and eleven dishes, and until Richard was born I had never once looked at that table and thought about salt. Now I look at almost nothing else.
The awkward truth of Chinese New Year with a small child is that the food is the point of the whole thing, and almost none of it was designed with a one-year-old in mind. This is what I've worked out over three of them, including which battles to have and which to let go.
What she can eat
More than you'd think. The trick is to look at the table as a set of components and pull the plain ones out before anything gets dressed, which is easier if you do it early and without commentary.
Steamed fish, plain rice, blanched greens with the sauce rinsed off, and steamed taro or sweet potato will cover almost any child at almost any reunion dinner. Serve it in her own bowl, from the middle of the dish before the sauce goes on, and you have solved most of the evening in about ninety seconds.
| Dish | Under 1 | 1-2 years | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steamed fish | Yes, flaked | Yes | Check every flake for bones. Rinse off the sauce |
| Plain rice or porridge | Yes | Yes | The safest thing on the table |
| Steamed or blanched greens | Yes, chopped | Yes | Rinse the oyster sauce off first |
| Braised mushrooms | Chopped small | Chopped | Slippery and round: quarter them |
| Yusheng | No | Small taste, no nuts | Raw fish, crushed peanuts, sugar, crackers |
| Pen cai / poon choi | Picked-out items only | Selected items | Very salty broth; many hard items |
| Bak kwa | No | No | Sugary, salty, and tough to chew |
| Pineapple tarts | No | Half of one, at most | Sugar. Not a nutritional loss |
| Nian gao | No | No | Dense and extremely sticky: a serious choking risk |
| Tang yuan | No | No | Glutinous, round, and a documented choking cause |
| Love letters, kueh bangkit | No | Broken small | Hard, crumbly, dissolve unpredictably |
| Whole nuts, melon seeds | No | No | Choking hazard until at least four |
On portions and stage
The salt problem
This is the one to be firm about, because the numbers are further apart than most people realise. A baby under one should have less than 1g of salt a day, which is under 0.4g of sodium. From one to three the limit is 2g of salt. A single serving of pen cai broth, or a piece of bak kwa, can put a child past a whole day's allowance on its own, and infant kidneys don't process the excess the way an adult's do. So the practical rule is that the sauces are the problem and the food underneath usually isn't. Rinse things. Take portions from the centre before dressing. Ask for a small bowl of plain rice at the start of the meal so that there's always something safe within reach when everybody else is eating.
The real choking risks
Some of these surprise people, and one of them is a documented, every-year emergency.
Tang yuan and nian gao are the two to be absolutely rigid about. Glutinous rice is dense and sticky, it doesn't break up in the mouth, and it lodges. This isn't a cautious-parent position. It's the reason hospitals here see cases every festive season. Neither belongs anywhere near a child under three, whatever anybody at the table says. I don't know the exact number of cases. The paediatrician I asked said every year, without hesitating.
- Whole nuts and melon seeds. No child under four, no exceptions, and CNY is the one time of year they're in an open dish at toddler height in every room you visit.
- Love letters and kueh bangkit, which are hard, then crumbly, then suddenly a mouthful of paste. Broken very small for over-ones if at all.
- Braised mushrooms, which are round and slippery. Quarter them.
- Water chestnuts and lotus root, hard and round in equal measure.
- Satay skewers and fish balls, both of which turn up at open houses and both of which need chopping.
- Yusheng, which is raw fish over crushed peanuts, and is a no for under-ones on both counts.
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I want to spend a moment here, because this is the part every guide skips and it's the part that causes the arguments.
Charles spends his weekdays with his grandmother while I'm at work, so I haven't had the luxury of treating this as a once-a-year negotiation. I've had to work out how to hold a food rule with somebody I love, who's doing me an enormous favour, who raised children perfectly successfully before I existed, and who's going to be handling my child again on Monday whatever is said on Sunday.
What I've learned is that the framing does all the work. A rule that sounds like a judgement on how she raised her own children will be resisted, and reasonably so. A rule that comes from a doctor, or from the child's own body, is something you're both on the same side of.
- Give a reason that is about the child and never about the cook. "His doctor said no salt until one" ends a conversation that "I don't want him eating that" only starts.
- Come with a yes in your hand. Arrive with a small container of something he can have and offer it before anybody else offers anything, so that feeding him is still possible for everybody who wants to.
- Pick the two rules that matter, glutinous rice and whole nuts, in most families, and let the pineapple tart go. A child who has half a tart once a year is fine, and spending your authority on it means you have none left for the tang yuan.
- Let the person feeding him feel handy. Handing my mother-in-law the bowl of plain rice and letting her be the one to feed him solved more than any amount of explaining ever did.
- Say it once, early, to the person who counts, and not eleven times across the evening to whoever happens to be holding him.
I'm not trying to win. I want to get to the end of the fortnight with the food rules intact and the relationships intact, and I've managed both, twice, with one near miss over a pineapple tart.
And the visiting
The eating is only half of it. The other half is that you'll do this in four houses over two weeks, and each one will have an open dish of peanuts on a low table.
The rest of the fortnight
Sweep the room when you arrive. It takes fifteen seconds and it's the best thing you'll do all afternoon: move the nut dishes up, note where the sweets are, and find out which room you can retreat to. Take his own bowl and spoon so that there's no waiting for a clean one. Take more food than you think, because the timing of a visiting day won't match the timing of a one-year-old, and you won't want to be relying on somebody else's kitchen at half past two.
Things parents ask me
Can babies eat nian gao?
No. Sticky rice cake is dense and glutinous, doesn't break apart, and is a documented choking cause. Avoid it for babies and toddlers entirely.
Can a baby eat yusheng?
Not under one. It contains raw fish, crushed peanuts, sugar and hard crackers. A toddler can have a small taste of the vegetable strands with the nuts and crackers left out.
How much salt can a baby have at a CNY dinner?
Under 1g of salt a day below age one, and 2g between one and three. A single serving of most restaurant dishes exceeds that, so rinse sauced food and use plain rice as the base.
What CNY foods are safe for a one-year-old?
Plain rice or porridge, flaked steamed fish with bones checked, rinsed steamed greens, and quartered soft mushrooms. Bring her own bowl and serve it yourself.
How do I stop relatives feeding my baby sweets?
Give her a full bowl of her own so there's no gap to fill, and use a short unarguable line, "she isn't on that yet, doctor's orders", and never a nutritional argument.
This guide is general information, written to help you understand a topic and ask better questions. It is not medical advice and does not replace your own doctor, midwife or paediatrician. Anything that worries you about your baby belongs with them.