Tiger Tales

Food: How Sweet The Moon

 

The Mid-Autumn Festival is a big deal across Asia, and mooncakes are a much-anticipated delicacy, says Leslie Jordan Clary.

A resplendent full moon hangs over the South China Sea, casting a pearly glow across the dark waves. In Haikou, people sit in small groups along the shore at Holiday Beach. Lovers cuddle. Families pass around sunflower seeds and slices of watermelon. Friends congregate to share a bottle of wine or juice. And everyone eats mooncakes while they gaze upwards and admire the full moon.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, also commonly known as the Moon Festival is celebrated on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month.

It is a very special occasion both in China as well as for Chinese around the world. The festival’s culinary symbol is the mooncake: small, round pastries, traditionally made from a sweet paste and filled with egg yolk.

The round shape signifies reunion and harmony. During this festival, harmony is the sentiment most highlighted. In China, poets have composed poetic verses about gazing at the moon and missing your hometown and family during the Moon Festival.

HOW IT BEGAN

Some say the tradition of mooncakes during Mid-Autumn Festival began during the Yuan dynasty when the Mongols, led by Kublai Khan, occupied China. Chinese patriots planned a rebellion and passed messages to each other by hiding them inside mooncakes.

One version of the favourite Chinese legend goes like this: Chang Er, an inquisitive woman takes the elixir of life meant for her husband, Yi. She flies to the moon and now her husband can only visit her, the Moon Goddess, once a year during mid-autumn, which is why the moon is always so full and bright on this night.

Another version has it that a chaste young virgin is held captive in the palace of an Emperor who loves to behold her beauty, but she does not love him. One day, he presents her with three magic pills that are believed to make them live forever, and it is his plan that they each take one so they would spend eternity together.

However, the girl gulps down all three, and before the Emperor can capture her, she flies away to the moon where, until today, she lives with an old man (believed to be the moon god) and a bunny (his pet).

Mythology notwithstanding, today the moon is appreciated not just by traditional Chinese who burn incense to worship it, but by skillful pastry chefs who dedicate long periods of time just to create ever-changing versions of the mooncake.

Today, the mooncake is a delicacy that has developed (some say mutated) into an astonishing variety of forms and flavours, but all retaining the essential full shape of the moon. Tiger Tales

CHINA

The most common mooncake fillings are made with red bean, green bean or lotus paste, but you may also find fillings of rose, osmanthus flowers, walnut kernels, shelled melon seeds, peanut kernels or sesame meat.

Salty mooncakes can also be had: the fillings of these are ham, shrimp, onion, garlic and other kinds of meats. These are encased in a baked shell that comprises flour, sugar, maltose and fat.

China is a large country and, as may be expected, different areas have developed their own unique customs. For example, in Fucheng County in the Fujian Province, local women cross the Nanpu Bridge in an attempt to seek longevity.

In Jiannin County, lanterns are hung as a prayer for pregnancy, while people in Longyan County often scratch a hole in the centre of a mooncake for the elderly, signifying the withholding of secrets from younger generations.

WHERE TO BUY

■ Haikou: Xinqi Bakery (tel: +86 (898) 6681 2073), with 27 branches across Haikou and Sanya.

■ Shenzhen: Yi Ping Xuan Bakery (tel: +86 (755) 8300 4060), with 56 shops across Shenzhen.

■ Guangzhou: Liang Xiang Lou Bakery (tel: +86 (20) 8181 3388), with 10 shops in Guangzhou.

MACAU

Residents of Macau also like to have a good time during the Moon Festival. On this special night, any open space, rooftop or mountain will be occupied by revellers trying to see the moon.

Favourite places to go in Macau include Praia Grande and Nam Van Lakes, all gardens, and Hac-Sa and Cheoc-Van beaches in Coloane. Red lanterns, a traditional aspect of the festival, are left floating on the water.

Like Singapore, bakers in Macau have learnt to make mooncakes of many flavours, including peanut and macadamia nut, honeydew, orange and kiwi fruit! And let’s not forget low-fat and low-sugar varieties.

Even foreign commercial entities have gotten in on the act while in Asia, Starbucks adds mooncakes to its menu around mid-autumn and Haagen-Daz has introduced an ice-cream mooncake.

Mooncakes can be an acquired taste because of their richness, and for the same reason, they are commonly cut into quarters and shared. Savour your mooncake – it is part of an old tradition and a reminder of harmony, peace, prosperity and good luck.

WHERE TO BUY

■ Choi Heong Yuen Bakery (tel: +853 355 966), with six branches.

SINGAPORE

One Singaporean says his countrymen “make use of the Mid-Autumn Festival to exaggerate life”. Because Singapore is such a multi-cultural place, the Festival here has incorporated bits and pieces from various ethnic groups.

Of course, Singapore’s Chinatown is one of the more rousing places to enjoy the Mid-Autumn Festival – the “light-up” along the entire stretch goes on from 4 to 30 September this year. Along the Singapore River, a festive mood bursts forth with dragon dances, lanterns, fireworks, and Chinese opera.

But the main event – as is the case for most festivals in Singapore – is about the food! Singapore’s mooncakes come in flavours as varied as its cultures. The most basic includes two egg yolks to symbolise double happiness, or four yolks to symbolise the four seasons.

Four egg yolks are luckier than two yolks and supposedly mean that life will be good all year round. Children usually fail to appreciate the richness of the mooncake, opting for biscuit-style cakes that are shaped like fish (for prosperity).

In a land where dining is a sport, trust the Singaporeans to come up with ultra-fancy mooncake fillings, including ice-cream (two flavours – one for the body, one for the “yolk”), champagne and dark chocolate. If there is a filling that can be stuffed into a mooncake, Singapore has figured out how to do it!

The most exquisite treat during the Mooncake Festival is the Raffles Hotel’s famous unique mooncakes. Anyone for champagne truffle paste wrapped in a melt-in-your-mouth snow skin? Yum...

Every year, new and increasingly exotic flavours are added. This year, it’s the Oreo Mooncake for the baked variety and the Mini Snow-Skin Mooncake with Dark Chocolate Crunchy Pearls.

WHERE TO BUY

■ Raffles Hotel (1 Beach Road, tel: +65 6337 1886). Mooncake season is from 25 August to 6 October.