Mid Autumn Festival Part 1- I just got Mooned!

Mid Autumn Festival – Part 1

Oh the magical Mid Autumn festival holiday full of tradition; beautiful looking, but foul tasting, sweets and lovely lanterns.

Frankly there is just too much information to cover in a single entry so will cover in three parts over the next few days.

The Mid Autumn Festival takes place on the 15th Day of the 8th Month. So I can just hear you scratching your heads and saying “But it is October”. Okay well the Chinese use a Lunar calendar (and a western one too –which would be way too confusing for us westerners). So technically it is the 15th day of the 8th month even though it is really October 3rd, go figure. This party is about celebrating the moon, what we might refer to as the Harvest Moon, the biggest full moon of the year, so hey everyone let’s party!

And of course we are going to bust out the Moon cakes. Without being too derogatory about traditions I don’t fully understand, let me just say that the Moon Cake is the Chinese equivalent of the fruit cake, no one wants them but everybody is ‘up to their eyeballs in em’ and god knows you can’t get rid of them fast enough! And like the fruitcake they would make a great doorstop.

Moon Cakes are made out of Lotus paste and have an egg yolk (or a double egg yolk) in the middle. The taste is pretty much not like anything I have ever had before but my best description is ‘peanut butter mixed with clay and dirt’. YUM! At least I was warned, I have heard first hand accounts of Westerners thinking these moon cakes were like a big ole muffin and taking a huge bite, only to fight from gagging in front of thier Chinese friends and co-workers

Moon Cakes tend to lean towards the very traditional shape (round like the moon and covered with some fancy writing I can’t read). But a hipster store near my apartment has come out with a less traditional line of moon cakes… that are shaped like a different type of moon…very cheeky! I made a purchase there today and received a complimentary moon cake probably because by tomorrow they will be utterly worthless from a retail standpoint and still just as awful from a culinary one.

I think I will stick with my foam rubber squeezy moon cake... it will last all year and if I had to eat a moon cake I would go for the foam rubber one - probably tastes better.