Today(14/9 aka 15/8 in Chinese lunar calendar) is one of the most important festival in Chinese (and also Korean I think) culture. On mid-autumn night, you will see the biggest, roundest, brightest and most beautiful full moon of the year. The round, full moon symbolize completion(of the family), which is something we care about very much. On that night, we will normally have a feast with the whole family. Also, we eat mooncakes, we eat seasonal fruits such as starfruit, pamelo and pear and we carry lanterns, all outside under the moon. We burn candles too(usually the kids).
Mooncake is the best thing that can represent the festival. Typical mooncakes are round pastries having thick filling made from lotus seed paste and is surrounded by a relatively thin crust and may contain yolks from salted duck eggs.
But nowadays, there are also some "modern mooncakes" in the market, such as "snowy mooncake" which its "crust" is made of glutinous rice flour while it has a variety of filling(green bean paste, sesame paste, durian, cream cheese and blueberry jam, tiramisu, black forest cake, coffee......)and "ice cream mooncake" which usually is some ice cream surrounded by a crust made of chocolate. International brands like Häagen-Dazs, Starbucks and Godiva also sell mooncake.
Häagen-Dazs' of course are ice cream mooncakes.
Godiva's are chocolate(from filling to crust).
Starbucks'- the filling is coffee or tea flavoured as i remember
Snowy mooncakes from the local bakery "taipan" which is specialized in snowy mooncakes
sesame
black truffle?!
caviar?!
blueberry cheese
durian
and lastly, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival and enjoy the big full moon. |
