RING IN PROSPERITY, LONGEVITY
Pineapple tarts are fragrant, delicious and a symbol of wealth
I took my first bite and teared up. It had been years since I’d eaten a pineapple tart, and the sweetness of the pineapple jam melding with the buttery pastry base filled me with a longing to be with my family in Singapore for the Chinese New Year celebrations, which I haven’t been able to observe for four years now. The fond memories, the yearning for home and the amazing flavor tugged on my heartstrings like nothing else.
Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year as some prefer to call the celebration, is what I like to think of as the eastern version of Thanksgiving, but on steroids. Celebrations last for as long as two weeks, and people travel long distances to reunite with family and friends. There is always good food, great laughter and much love.
A staple snack of any Singaporean or Malaysian gathering during this season is the
Singapore and Malaysia decorate with pineapple motifs during Chinese New Year as they seek to invite prosperity to their homes and businesses in the year ahead. (The next time your friends argue against pineapples on pizza, you can tell them that you are just blessing them with prosperity.)
Traditionally, the pineapple tart is a ball of homemade pineapple jam atop a butter pastry. My mother liked to get creative and turn them into fruit by wrapping the dough around a jam ball and sticking a clove in the top. I also put my own twist on it by making them look like mini kolachke or cannoli.
Often, the whole family is involved in making them, and the labor of love also serves as good bonding time. There is no one right way to make the jam and base. Some families prefer the jam dry and the pastry crumbly. Others think the tart should be moist and chewy. And no one can agree on the origins of this sweet treat. My mother, Yoki Wong, describes the pineapple tart as a blending of cultures, a relic from the colonial era. The pastry base — cookie-like, crumbly and buttery — has a European flair to it, she says, while the pineapple jam, made from grated pineapples stewed with sugar, cloves and cinnamon sticks, is more southeast Asian.
My mother’s recipe was adapted from one given by my father’s old neighbor, who was of the colonial era herself and whom we visited every Chinese New Year in Malaysia until she died. Josephine Gregory was the first female secretary for the British when Malaysia was still under their rule, but I remember her more for her sweet and loving nature. The recipe she gave my mother called, mystifyingly, for teacups of flour, but it must have worked for her because her pineapple tarts were perfect every year, as were all her Chinese New Year cookies, which she baked by the hundreds to gift.
After fiddling with Ms. Gregory’s recipe for more than a decade, and after converting the measurements to proper units, my mother sent it to me. I hope this family recipe will bring you as much joy as it has for me. And I hope this year of the dog, you are met with much health, wealth and happiness!