As with every Chinese festival, there's a legend attached to the significance of the Mid-Autumn Festival. Once upon a time, the earth had ten suns. They burned the crops and people were suffering. A man called Houyi decided to shoot down nine suns and leave one for the benefit of the people. After he shot down the suns, he was treated as a hero. He had a beautiful wife named Chang'e and they lived happily together. As a reward for his heroism, the Emperor of the Immortals gave Houyi two pills, each of which granted eternal life as a reward for shooting down the suns - one was for Houyi and the other for his wife. Houyi was to wait until New Years Day, on which he and Chang'e were supposed to eat the pills together. Chang’e put the pill in her jewelry box for safekeeping. But Peng, one of Houyi’s apprentices, discovered their secret and decided to steal the pill. Peng sneaked into Chang’e’s room and forced her to give him the pill. Chang’e knew she couldn't fight Peng so she ate the pill herself. However, after eating it alone, she began to float. Unable to come back to earth, she took flight and flew far, far away. She did not want to leave her husband so she stopped at the moon, which is the body closest to Earth. After Houyi found out what happened, he was very angry and heartbroken. He looked up into the night and called Chang’e’s name. He discovered that inside the moon there was a lady’s shadow that look like Chang’e, so he ran and ran and tried to reach the moon. He failed due to the wind. Chang'e now lives on the moon and has the Jade Rabbit who pounds medicine and makes elixirs for the gods, for company.
As for why we eat mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival, legend has it is to commemorate the uprising in China against the Mongol rulers of the Yuan Dynasty (1280–1368) in the 14th century. As group gatherings were banned, it was impossible to make plans for a rebellion. Noting that the Mongols did not eat mooncakes, the advisor to the Chinese rebel leader Zhu Yuan Zhang came up with the idea of timing the rebellion to coincide with the Mid-Autumn Festival. He sought permission to distribute thousands of moon cakes to the Chinese residents in the city to bless the longevity of the Mongol emperor. Inside each cake however, was inserted a piece of paper with the message: "Kill the Mongols on the 15th day of the 8th month" (八月十五殺韃子). On the night of the Moon Festival, the rebels successfully attacked and overthrew the government. What followed was the establishment of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), under Zhu's ruling. Henceforth, the Mid-Autumn Festival was celebrated with moon cakes.
Anyway the point of this entry is : I LOVE MOONCAKES and I've had heaps in the last 2 weeks. Everyone in my family knows I have a thing for mooncakes (ok, all things sweet) so they've been enabling me by giving me all sorts of mooncakes. I had to taste them all for the sake of my blog!!
There are 2 types of mooncakes - traditional version with the baked pastry and the modern version with the cold outer skin. The usual fillings are red bean and lotus seed paste with or without salted egg. The newer fillings are taro, pandan, chocolate, etc.. you name it and they have it.
I went to Tofu Shop and bought a twin pack mini mooncakes by Maxim Hong Kong - cold skin mooncakes called Pineapple Crunch, ie the filling is made of pineapple paste with crunchy chocolate bits (we think it's cocoa puffs). I was also given a small padded bag to keep the mooncakes cool I assumed. Score!
Viv was my hand model so you can see how small the mooncake was.
It was only ok.. didn't taste like pineapple at all and the crunchy bits were a bit weird. Meh..
I also had a couple of the traditional baked ones. This was another old established Hong Kong brand..
Lotus seed paste with double egg yolk.... mmmmm yum yum cholesterol...
Viv bought some locally made cold skin mooncakes from the taiwanese bakery in Greenlane.. a mango one which I didn't take pics of... that was nice and mangoey. This radioactive green mooncake is a pandan flavoured cold skin mooncake with a single egg yolk. It smelt fragrant because of the pandan.
Jenn and Jayden came up from Hamilton for our French Cafe dinner (separate post to come) and brought us a huge box of taiwanese style mooncakes...
Three flavours, four each to a box - taro, mung beans and red bean.
All in the name of science... lined up and ready to be tasted...
Insides shot:
The taro was my favourite and the mung bean was my least favourite as it was a bit dry and powdery. The red bean is normal... I'm taking one to work tomorrow as one of my numerous snacks... hehe..
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone!
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