Monday, September 12, 2011

Good Eats Monday - Chinese Mooncake

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival - 9/12/2011

It's all about the Mooncake...
Not really...

Almost All Chinese Festivals are opportunities for families to gather.
There are always lessons to be learned, stories to be told...but most importantly...Food To Eat!

Here is a link for the History & Origin of Mid-Autumn Festival:
http://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/culture/history-and-origin.htm

For our purpose, it's just about the "Mooncake."

What is it?
It's a Chinese pastry, typically round or rectangular with a approx. 3" diameter . Made of a thick sweetened lotus seed paste filling (nowadays, they are filled with all sorts of pasty ingredients), surrounded by a thin doughy crust. It may or may not contain salted duck egg yolk (sounds "interesting" to say the least, obviously an acquired taste, but a good one IMHO) .

Mooncake is usually eaten in small wedges with a cup of tea. Families and businesses present them as gifts. Over the years, mooncake has become more and more expansive and exclusive, $25-50 for a box of four. Mini-mooncake can cost up to $5 per piece.

An interesting article on high-end mooncakes - Shanghai Presents - Magnificent Mooncakes 
http://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/index.php/article/detail/980

At our house growing up...
As children, I don't think we loved it, but made it fun with how we would eat it.
We did like the double egg yolks ones better.


Each cake is cut into 8 pieces.  But, we can't peek at the inside.  The yolks are not typically distributed evenly in the cake.  So each 8th will not get an equal amount of filling and yolk.  It became a game as to who would get the "loser" pieces, the ones without the yolk.


Sometimes, even for a Chinese daughter, it is Not about the food...but the Memories.

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