China Talk Tuesday: Specialty Mooncakes

Did you know that this Saturday is Mid-Autumn Festival? Well, it is!

Rivaled only by Chinese New Year for sheer COOLNESS, this festival was one of my favorites when I lived in Hong Kong. One of my favorite things about the holiday was that I saw families together. People work so. hard. in Hong Kong. Long hours, long commutes...it all adds up. However, on this one night - families are together. Nobody works. Even missionaries, who are committed to serving in their missions for 18-24 months, with no exceptions, are allowed to go home if their families live in Hong Kong.

A large meal is prepared, with enough food to feed an army. After dinner, everyone goes outside to sit, chat, look at the moon and play with fire. The adults might go off to play a round (or ten) or mahjong. Lo Gung remembers loving Mid Autumn Festival because it was the one night he was allowed to play with fire. Small red candles are sold everywhere that time of year, and he and his friends figured out that if you got a bunch of them melted into one big pile on the pavement, and then lit it on fire...it produced quite the blaze! Children run around with little battery-powered lanterns on sticks. It's a fabulous evening!

When people have regained the ability to walk after the huge meal, they head back inside for plates of fresh fruit...and mooncakes.

Mooncakes are traditionally small pastries, filled with lotus bean paste and one cooked egg yolk. The pastry is difficult to describe, but it's rather like a very tender shortbread. There is usually a design impressed on the top of the cake. Lotus Beans are actually the seeds of what we call water lilies. They are ground up, similar to peanut butter, but firmer. The egg yolk provides a nice savory (if greasy) contrast to the rich, sweet lotus bean paste.

The egg yolk is also symbolic - when the mooncake is cut open, you can see the perfect yellow sphere, in a dark, creamy sea. The egg yolk represents the full moon, which is large on beautiful around the day of the Mid-Autumn festival.

The stories of Mid-Autumn festival are many, and varied, but the one that stuck with me was that an area of China was under siege. The citizens were forlorn and...well, captive. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of staging an uprising, but how to do it? The conquerors watched their every move and would not allow them to congregate. A festival! They needed a festival. The citizens told their captors that a great festival was coming up. It was a lie to begin with...but, then, who says festivals need history to be accurate? It became an annual event after that! They baked up loads and loads of little mooncakes to hand around. When other citizens saw the yellow moon inside of the cake, they knew - the uprising was set to take place on the evening of the full moon. The uprising was successful, and the day has been celebrated ever since.

There's another story that involves a bunny and fiery arrows...but I can never keep it straight. (Lo Gung? Want to help me out here?)

Since a cookie recipe, as everyone knows, is never safe from tampering, the mooncakes have undergone many transformations over the years. The originals are still available, and quite popular. Other common versions include lotus seed paste with two yolks, lotus seed paste with no yolks, and pastries filled with red bean paste instead of lotus seed paste.

More uncommon versions include...the one you see below.

(Red Bean and Chestnut, Mei Sum Bakery, Hong Kong)

We were the lucky recipients of a lovely, gold box full of mooncakes from Lo Gung's Aunt and Uncle when we saw them a few weeks ago. The Red Bean and Chestnut specimen above was simply the first one to be sliced. There are 5 more cakes in the box. They include: Blake Jujube Paste with Pecans (jujubes are a kind of date), Coffee Paste with Macadamia Nuts, Red Date Paste with Olive Seed (really? Olive seeds? I'll keep you posted.), White Lotus Seed Paste with Olive Seed (Again with the olive seeds. Hmmm..), and Oolong Tea Paste.

(Note to my family - you know that not all of these will be enjoyed by us alone. Rest easy!)

The festival takes place on Saturday night. Eat an apple and go look at the moon. Hug your kids. Call your parents. Have some friends over for dinner.

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone!