Gung hei fat choi! Chinese New Year is upon us, a time to embrace the new, to welcome prosperity and fortune in for a new year.

That’s nice. What’s for dinner?

The Chinese have many culinary traditions at this time of year, such as eating fish;  steamed is the way to go, whether you’re cooking up a filet of halibut or a whole fish. Candy is also traditional, as it symbolically “sweetens” the new year.

But as it’s the dawn of the Year of the Pig, we think it’s only appropriate to celebrate our porcine pal in the way we know best: by eating him. And lest you think that pork be off limits during this year, take heart: According to the San Jose Mercury News, there’s no sacred pig.

“So few animals of the Lunar New Year are foodstuff,” says Shirley Fong-Torres, who leads food-culture tours of San Francisco’s Chinatown. “Pork is such a staple for us. How can we say `no’ during the new year? The pig will consider it an honor — or so we hope.”

The Mercury goes on to offer a virtual porcine smorgasbord of Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean recipes starring the never-boring boar, including some delicious pork-kimchee dumplings. (Dumplings are another auspiciously lucky dish this time of year.) Leite’s Culinaria spotlights a number of recipes from three prominent Chinese cookbook authors, including a very accessible sweet and sour pork recipe from Aussie star Kylie Kwong, excerpted from her book “Simple Chinese Cooking.”

But where to find quality pork? Most modern pigs are bred to be lean, mean meat-producing machines, but their fat content has greatly diminished over the last several decades. Most Chinese dishes favor pork with a bit of fat on it. Nate Appleman has found a source of fattier pigs for his salumi-making endeavors: “Heritage Farms finds old breeds of pigs that have been bred out because of their fat content. I use whatever cuts they have available and make menu decisions based on that.” Julie Tucker touts Niman Ranch Meats for their sustainable practices as well. “Most mass produced meat you find in the grocery store doesn’t come close to the flavor that you can get from quality natural meat. And Niman Ranch is the leader in this sector, and it comes from family farmers who raise their livestock traditionally, humanely, and sustainably and yield some of the tastiest meat I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying.”

Perhaps the most popular porky preparation is the all-American breakfast favorite, bacon. Niman Ranch’s Applewood Smoked Bacon gets good marks three ThisNexters; Dava Guthmiller finds it to be “the most readily available, awsome tasting bacon I´ve found.” And what could be a better way to celebrate our love of bacon than to have it delivered to your door on a monthly basis? The Grateful Palate Bacon of the Month Club is surely the highest form of flattery to Our Friend the Pig.

Once you’ve got your menu planned out, serve up your celebratory dishes in these adorable dishes made to look like take-out containers, adorned with another lucky animal, the cat. I’m not sure how I feel about eating pork dishes from a cat container, but I suppose it’s better than the other way around.

Hog wild for pork? See more of my Pig Out on Chinese New Year list at ThisNext.