shiokadelicious!

It Depends On Whether You Are A Romantic Or A Realist…

…as to which Mid-Autumn Festival legend you are more likely to believe or even enjoy.

There is of course the romantic, if somewhat tragic, legend of Chang Er, the immortal beauty who lives on the moon. There is also the story of stoic patriots who overthrew the evil occupiers that ruled their land.

Some will say that the ancient tale of Gods and Goddesses is the “true” legend ; others will insist that the festival is but a commemoration of brave men of history. I will say that the modern (as we know it today) Mid-Autumn Festival, or by its more commonly known name, Mooncake Festival, is an amalgamated tribute to both legends.

Let’s start at the beginning…

Once upon a moon…

(Now, remember, these events happened eons ago, and so memories are a little hazy in spots; there are several versions, so you’ll have to decide for yourself which one you like. Okay, on with the stories…)

As I was saying : once upon a moon… the Earth had ten suns circling around it. Usually, each sun took its turn to illuminate the planet, but one day, all ten suns appeared together, scorching the Earth with their heat. Rivers dried up, the land became barren, and scores of people died. Seeing the death and destruction on Earth, the divine archer Hou Yi, who was renowned as much for his deep compassionate nature as for his sharp shooting skills, shot down nine of the suns. And so, peace and prosperity were once again restored on Earth.

Hou Yi became a hero and was made the Emperor by the people. Unfortunately, with power and fame, also came the downfall. Hou Yi, heady with absolute power, became a tyrannical ruler who was obsessed with obtaining immortality so that he could forever remain the Emperor of the land. Instead of governing the people, he spent his days cultivating the Elixir of Life (a practice we call in Chinese “nian dan”).

Hou Yi's wife, the very beautiful (reputedly the most beautiful woman that ever lived) Chang Er, was afraid that an immortal Hou Yi would bring endless suffering to the people. So she sought out the vial containing the Elixir potion, and drank it, thus preventing her husband from getting hold of it. Immediately after she drank the Elixir, she became immortal, and flew up to the moon, where she remains to this day, accompanied by the jade rabbit.

And so it is that on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month - the day when the moon is at its roundest, fullest and brightest for the whole year - we mortals here on Earth can, if we look carefully enough, see Chang Er, our Moon Goddess, who saved us from an eternity of tyranny, dancing on the moon with her rabbit. On that day, we make offerings of food to the Goddess of the Moon.

This was the folklore that I heard and loved, as a little girl cuddled next to my mother as she told me the story. As I grew up, I heard many different versions. Here’s another one that I like…

The divine archer Hou Yi took compassion on the people on Earth and decided to save them from the severe drought and heat that plagued the land, by shooting down the nine extra suns that had suddenly appeared in the sky one day. It turned out that the suns were actually the Jade Emperor's own sons. The furious Jade Emperor banished both Hou Yi and his wife, the very beautiful divine fairy Chang Er, to a lifetime on Earth as mortals.

The Goddess Xi Wang Mu (Mother of the West Kingdom) took pity on them and gave Hou Yi the Elixir of Immortality. But Chang Er stole the pill and swallowed it. She rose to the moon, where she became the immortal Moon Goddess.

Hou Yi's love for Chang-Er outweighed his anger at her deed, and he built her a magnificent Moon Palace out of fragrant cinnamon wood to shelter her from the cold. Touched by his love, Chang-Er pleaded with the Goddess Xi Wang Mu to make her husband immortal as well. The Goddess agreed, but punished her for her selfish act of swallowing the Elixir of Immortality by separating the two, sending Hou Yi to the sun.

And so, Chang-Er now rules over the lunar kingdom, while Hou Yi rules over the solar kingdom, and they can only meet once a year on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month - a day when a celestial bridge appears linking both moon and sun, allowing the lovers to meet. As for the mortals on Earth, we commemorate the lovers, and Hou Yi’s merciful act of shooting down the nine suns, by lighting lanterns on the 15th night, that they may shine out a path for the lovers to meet.

This was how the original Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations came about. The legend also coincided with the completion of harvest, and thus both events melded together to become a time for joyous and festive celebration of love, family and the year’s harvest blessings. Certain foods came to be associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival, such as the pomelo, baby yams and lin jiao. (More on these later.)

However, the mooncake - the best known symbol of the modern festival - was not originally a part of the Mid-Autumn Festival. It did not make an appearance in Chinese social culture until seven centuries ago. And this is where the “pragmatic” folklore of the Festival comes in…

It all started with the 14th century revolt by the Chinese against their Mongol rulers, who had invaded and occupied the land.

In 1376, the Chinese overthrew the Yuan (Mongol) dynasty (1280-1376) in an uprising brilliantly hatched by the former leaders of the preceding Sung dynasty (960-1280). Unhappy at having to submit to foreign rule, these former leaders set out to co-ordinate a rebellion. They knew that the key to success was the element of surprise; they had to make sure their plans were not discovered. As the Mid-Autumn Festival was drawing near, the rebellion leaders ordered the making of special cakes to be distributed to the population as festive gifts. Into each round cake was stuffed messages and instructions urging the common folk to rise up and rebel against the Mongol rulers on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

And so, on that fateful night of the full moon, the rebels, led by Liu Bowen, successfully launched a midnight assault and overthrew the government. What followed was the establishment of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).

Thus, to this day, mooncakes continue to be eaten on the Mid-Autumn Festival, to commemorate that historic return of China to Chinese rule.

Subsequent to the rebellion, lanterns became even further entrenched as an integral symbol of the Mid-Autumn celebrations - so much so that the festival is also often called the Lantern Festival - for it was lantern-bearing messengers who delivered the round cakes containing the revolutionary messages to the people. So lanterns are lit each year, on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, to remember the courageous patriots, as well as to light the way for Chang Er and Hou Yi.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Apart from the mooncake, there are many foods, albeit less well-known, that are associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival. Most of them are simply seasonal produce that are found only during this time of the year, and need not necessarily carry much significance or symbolism.

One of my family’s favorites is the baby yams (taro) from China. Their yearly appearance is fleeting - usually only available for a week or two before and after the Festival; so when they are in season, we usually take full advantage of the chance to enjoy these soft, fluffy delights.

We sometimes simply steam them and eat them as is, but our favorite way of enjoying them is to slow-braise them with pork in dark soy sauce. The yams soak up all the intense and rich flavors of the pork and become absolutely, incredibly delicious! This is homey, rustic, down-to-earth food at its best! We’ve made this dish a couple of times already in the past week alone, and each time, it has been sublime! (Sorry, not a very pretty picture I know - dark soy sauce dishes are notoriously unphotogenic, unfortunately.)

These yams are smaller in size than regular yams/taro.

And are usually around the size of a head of garlic.

Inside, the raw flesh is an off-white color - rather different from the purplish hue of the regular taro.

When cooked, they take on a slightly grey cast with a tinge of lilac. But don’t let their nondescript, perhaps even rather unappealing, looks fool you. These yams, when fresh (lush-looking, round and full-bodied without deep indentations) and of good quality, have a gorgeous soft, tender, slightly powdery, very fluffy texture. Eaten on their own, they have a very subtle and delicate natural sweetness; when cooked with meat and boldly flavored with dark soy sauce, they take on layers upon layers of tastes and aromas. Spectacular!

(The above photo is of yams that have been quickly flash-fried before being slow-braised with the pork. Another way to prepare the yams would be to make them into fries or wedges, which are eaten simply with just a light sprinkling of salt.)

Another seasonal food is the lin jiao…

This is a starchy nut that is somewhat reminiscent of the Chinese chestnut.

Personally, I’m rather unsettled by the looks of this thing; and I’m not one that’s easily put off by “weird” food - - I mean, I’ve eaten deep fried scorpions, deep fried ants and grasshoppers, and even the sperm sac of a whale (I don’t think in reality it was really a whale; just a very large fish - the Japanese restaurant serving it was probably just trying to dramatize things a little). But this nut, I do not like the appearance of; it always, without fail, gives me the goosebumps. I think it looks terribly evil. Don’t you? What with that devilish horn shape… and those hair-like things growing out of the top. *Shiver*

When uncooked, it is extremely hard. Well, when cooked*, the shell is still very hard. To open it up, you either have to use a nut cracker, or like me, use a cleaver to cut it into half, and then pop the flesh out of the shell.

[* To cook the nuts, simply boil in salted water for about 2½ to 3 hours.]

The texture of the flesh is rather similar to the Chinese chestnut - maybe slightly crunchier. But it has a “cow smell” which I’m not fond of at all. And no, it’s not because of its looks that I’m saying it has a “cow smell”. It really does have a gamey taste and aroma, which I find decidedly unappealing - especially in a food of plant origin. Give me a roasted Chinese chestnut anytime.

Just of interest, the ones with the purplish-tinged flesh have slight bitter overtones, whereas the yellow-fleshed ones have a sweeter note and a stronger crunch to them.

Actually, the whole family doesn’t really like eating this nut, but my mum would buy some every other year or so, simply because, I suspect, it reminds her of her childhood memories of playing with them as toys. She has told me stories of how, even as young children, she and her siblings never ate these lin jiao. Instead, each Mid-Autumn Festival, when my grandmother bought these nuts, they would thread them onto thin wooden skewer sticks and make them into spinning toys! I am inclined to agree that this was probably a more fun way to use these nuts, but I think I would still not want to play with just evil looking things!

I’m just glad lin jiao only makes its appearance around Mid-Autumn Festival, and that just as quickly as it appears, it also disappears. The reasons why such an unappealing-looking food would be made a part of a highly auspicious occasion eludes me, but there you have it. I suppose it could be simply because this is the only time of the year that this nut is available.

Anyway, on to more appealing, and decidedly tastier, foods…

There are of course some foods that do carry much auspicious symbolism.

From the earliest times of the Festival, a tradition of offering and eating round fruits developed; these symbolize the fullness of the moon and the fullness of family harmony and fulfillment (yuan man).

One such fruit is the pomelo. This bi-annual fruit is in season during both Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) and the Mid-Autumn Festival, and so plays a highly symbolic role in both festivals. It is considered an auspicious fruit because its Chinese name sounds like the word "blessing" and its Cantonese name sounds like "to have", thus symbolizing abundance.

Pomelos are now available almost year-round, but the off-season, forcibly ripened fruits are a ghostly (and ghastly) shadow of the sweet, juicy in-season offerings.

I tell you, nothing quite beats eating wedges of well-chilled, succulent pomelos on a hot, humid, muggy day - that indescribable pleasure of the little sacs of sweet, juicy nectar exploding in your mouth with each bite! Exquisite!

Of course, the best known symbol of the Festival is the mooncake. As I have mentioned in my previous posts, the mooncakes of old were nothing like the ones we know today. The original mooncakes - sent out on that history-changing night of the rebellion - were but simple and plain round cakes of dough. Nowadays, mooncakes are sweet - and rather expensive - indulgences that come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and flavors.

What hasn’t changed though is their symbolism and significance. They still symbolize unity - of family and country - and they continue to signify harmony and fulfillment (yuan man). Each year, on Mid-Autumn’s night, as the entire family gathers together for a reunion dinner, the mooncake reminds us of the blessings of the love of family that we have received in the past year.

Before we bring the curtain down on mooncakes for another year, here’s one final look at one that’s a mix of old and new - one that is highly traditional in looks and feel, but with an interesting modern twist.

This is an offering from Yang Hua Cake House (which I have already mentioned previously). It is a traditional Teochew la bing, but with an interesting he ping (union) filling.

The filling is a combination of red bean paste and winter melon paste. It’s a surprising pairing, but one that works - at least for me; I like the interesting blend of textures and flavors. The texture of the red bean paste is more akin to that which is usually found in tau sar pau (red bean paste steamed buns), rather than that which is normally used in mooncakes. The winter melon paste (dong gua rong) is nicely smooth, with a subtle sprinkling of finely diced candied winter melon adding an intriguing sweet, crunchy bite to it.

The more robust flavors of the red bean paste melds well with the more subtle tastes of the winter melon paste; while the slightly crunchy bite of the latter provides a nice counterpoint to the smooth silkiness of the bean paste. Plus, the color contrast makes for a nice change from the usual monochromatic theme; and is a rather appropriate symbolism of yin and yang, of the moon (Chang Er) and the sun (Hou Yi), and of the union of family and loved ones.

I also really appreciate the well-made traditional Teochew flaky pastry crust in Yang Hua’s version. As you can see, the layers of the pastry are well defined and separated; not clumped together into a dense mass. The crumb is beautifully light and crisp. And most importantly, it is crisp throughout - there isn’t a rim of dense, doughy, undercooked pastry where the filling meets the crust.

This is another nice mooncake find for the year.

[Oh, and in case you are wondering how you can tell, just by looking at the uncut mooncake, whether the filling is a combined or singular paste filling… you look at the sesame seeds decoration on the top of the mooncake. If there are four spots of white sesame seeds, the filling is pure winter melon paste; if there are both white and black sesame seeds imprinted onto the surface of the mooncake, then it is a red bean-winter melon pastes combination.]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Mid-Autumn Festival, as it is celebrated in the 21st Century, has a mix of traditions taken from both ancient folklore and Chinese history.

Some still pray to the Moon Goddess for family unity and harmony, or, in the case of single women, for a good husband! And it is still customary for whole families to gather and sit out under the full moon and shang yue liang (literally: to admire the moon).

And as a nod to history, mooncakes continue to be given as gifts to friends and family, and are enjoyed in each household as a symbol of unity and harmony.

Perhaps the ultimate mixing of the two different legends of the Mid-Autumn Festival can be found on many mooncake boxes, which are commonly adorned with images of the beautiful Chang Er in her luminous, flowy gown, carrying the jade rabbit. Chang Er and mooncakes - two different tales from two different times of history, coming together into one inseparable tradition of the Mid-Autumn Festival.

So to all who are celebrating the festival tonight, I wish you and your family a most joyous and peace-filled Mid-Autumn Festival. Zhong Qiu Jie Kuai Le!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Going Looney Over Mooncakes

This is the time of year when I really do go quite looney (not that I don’t display vestiges of such behavior from time to time during the rest of the year) over mooncakes. I love mooncakes; but I can also be quite finicky about which ones I’ll eat. They have to be worth the while, if you know what I mean – worth all that sugar, fat and calories!

What has been somewhat odd for me this year – during my annual ‘mooncake binge’ – is a seeming shift in the desires of my taste-buds; my palate seems to have gone all traditional on me.

For some reason, the mooncakes that I have enjoyed in previous years have failed to entice, much less excite, my taste-buds. As I was walking around the Takashimaya Mooncake Bazaar a couple of weeks ago, tasting all the “brands” that I had thought were safe, long-time “enjoyments” (I won’t use the word ‘favorites’ – that’s a little strong), I was surprised to find that they no longer appealed. Someone’s tastes have obviously changed: either me or the mooncakes (oh alright, that’s a lame stab at humor ; but humor me anyway – I’m a little high on mooncakes).

Goodwood Park’s and Begawan Solo’s wuren (mixed nuts) mooncakes feel very sweet on the palate; a lot sweeter than I remember them being previously. Most of the various lotus seed paste and red bean paste varieties from the various high-end hotels and bakeries seem rather run-of-the-mill somehow; not exciting enough for me to want to take them home with me. And this year, I am being left morose and bereft of any custard mooncakes. How can this be? A mooncake festival without any custard mooncakes to eat! But alas! It is true. My standard fall-back from East Ocean doesn’t taste the same this year, and I haven’t found a replacement - not in the offerings by Hong Kong’s Peninsula Hotel or one of the other Hong Kong bakeries that is showcasing at the bazaar.

However, it is not a completely mooncake-less festival, thank goodness. Instead, my taste-buds have found enjoyment from an unexpected quarter. Unexpected for me at least. What has emerged as some of my favorites for this year are a couple of the offerings from an old, long-established, very traditional bakery in Chinatown – Tai Chong Kok (or Da Zhong Guo in Mandarin; literally translated as “Big China”).

I don’t remember having tried their mooncakes before; in previous years I’ve tried those from some of the other “famous” Chinatown traditional bakeries, but not Tai Chong Kok. Several weeks ago, my mum came home with a couple of their mooncakes, and we both instantly liked their red bean paste (dou sha or tau sar) ones. This was before the Takashimaya Bazaar; and even after visiting each of the bazaar’s close to 40 mooncake stalls, we still like Tai Chong Kok’s red bean paste mooncake.

Tai Chong Kok is about as traditional as you’re going to get in Singapore, when it comes to old-fashioned Chinese bakeries. All forms of marketing glitz and razzmatazz are eschewed for tried-and-proven simplicity and practicality. No glossy, embossed designer paper bags here; you get to carry your mooncakes home in a simple brown paper bag – the type that harks back to the 60s and 70s: brown, with red and white string handles. The big (very big), bold red letterings printed onto the bag are the only nod to design and branding. Even then, they declare quite simply: “Tai Chong Kok Bakery, Mid-Autumn Mooncakes”. Simple, direct and to the point.

Inside the bag, the mooncakes are wrapped up the traditional way – no fancy wooden gift boxes in plush hues of plums and maroons; none of those flashy, elaborately illustrated metal gift boxes thank you very much. After you have chosen your mooncakes, they are stacked together, turned onto their sides, and rolled up and wrapped in white greaseproof paper. To give this plain outfit a dash of color, a piece of auspicious hong-bao red paper is then wrapped around the cylinder-shaped package and the ends secured with the humble and useful, but decidedly inelegant cellotape! Again, no flowery, descriptive marketing prose on this piece of red covering – “Mid-Autumn Mooncake” is all that it says.

Here’s an innocuous bit of trivia: the width of this red piece of paper is made to exactly fit the height of four regular-sized mooncakes stacked together. As you can see from the very top picture, because I purchased only three mooncakes this time round (on a third visit to the shop to replenish our fast disappearing mooncake stock), the red paper juts out a little on either end.

Their red bean paste mooncakes have been a pleasant discovery for us.

These mooncakes - made entirely by hand - have a distinctly rustic look to them. They do not have the clinical exactness and perfection of the hotel- or modern bakery-made ones. The ‘bas-relief’ design on the tops of the mooncakes is sometimes a little indistinct and faded in parts, but it all adds to the appeal. There’s a rather charming, rakish air to them; almost a certain confident nonchalance - as if declaring that it is the substance and not the appearance that matters.

Indeed, it is in the taste department that they show their strength. The red bean paste is very clearly home-made. I can actually taste the red beans in the paste – it sounds obvious, but this is not always the case with a lot of red bean paste products, where oftentimes, there are barely any pure notes of red bean flavors under all the sugar and additives.

This filling has a fuller body and a more robust bite and mouth-feel; it is less sweet and less silken due to the smaller amounts of oil and ‘smoothening agents’ used to cook the paste. I like the taste and feel of this red bean paste a lot - such a contrast to the ubiquitous slickly smooth offerings on the market.

I don’t know if you can see this clearly from the photo, but there is actually a tinge of red in the red bean paste. Again, this may sound obvious, but is yet another not very common occurrence. A lot of Chinese-style (as opposed to Japanese-style) red bean pastes are actually black (or very close to it) in color – due to the large amounts of the additive “pang sar” (sorry, I’ve no idea what this is called in English), which is used to add bulk and silky smoothness to the red bean paste. At least here the pang sar is kept to a minimum, and I can actually see the red beans in the red bean paste!

I also enjoy the somewhat different texture of the crust. It has a firmer, more robust bite to it that I find very appealing. It’s less oily too.

It actually feels like I’m eating a “real” mooncake when I bite into this red bean paste version – the crust is nicely thin, aromatic with a crusty firmness; the red bean paste tastes and looks like red bean paste; and there is a rather generous sprinkling (which is not necessarily as common an occurrence as might be thought) of melon seeds to finish off the textural and flavor contrasts.

There’s one final bonus too – the price. Whereas most plain “red bean paste–melon seeds” mooncakes sell for around S$7 (US$4) per piece, these go for a mere S$3.70 each. How’s that for a deal? However, here’s a caveat : the same mooncake at the Tai Chong Kok stall at the Takashimaya Bazaar is selling for around S$5+! A whopping 35% price differential! At first we thought that they had simply increased the prices across the board as the Mid-Autumn Festival drew closer, but when we went back to their Chinatown outlet after visiting the Takashimaya Bazaar, we found the price at the bakery was still S$3.70.

Tai Chong Kok sells only the traditional red lotus seed paste mooncake - as the lady in the shop declared to us: they don’t believe in the modern marketing gimmick of white lotus seed pastes. For them, traditional is the best and only way to go. [Oh, in case you are wondering: yes, this traditional lotus seed paste is brown in color, but the poetic and symbolism-loving Chinese call it “hong lian yong” or red lotus seed paste, simply because “red” sounds more elegant and auspicious than “brown”.]

Again, the lotus seed paste is very clearly home-made; the use of genuine ingredients to cook the paste is evident. The sweetness, like in the red bean paste, is also well balanced, and the small sprinkling of pine nuts adds an aromatic touch. The only let down for us is that the paste (at least in the mooncake batch that we bought) has a rather unappealing over-cooked taste to it – what my mum calls overly “lao huo” (literal translation: “old fire” – that is, the paste has been cooked for too long). We find this masks the purity of the natural lotus seed flavors and aromas. We haven’t made any repeat purchase, so I can’t verify whether this is true for all their lotus seed paste mooncakes or just that particular batch.

We have also tried their wu ren (mixed nut) mooncake. And it’s not bad; I won’t say I love it (that special place remains firmly occupied by my mum’s home-made version), but it certainly has a few things going for it, which I haven’t necessarily found in other commercial offerings.

For one, it is pretty chock-full of nuts, and not simply filled out with a large proportion of candied winter melon. It is thus not tooth-achingly sweet.

I have a personal, kind of quirky and utterly unscientific “clue-marker” which I use to help me guess whether a wu ren mooncake is suitably filled with a large quantity of nuts. If it is, it is not uncommon to see small little cracks in the crust of the mooncake (as seen in the picture above) – a result of the pastry being baked around a hard core of nuts instead of around a comparatively softer, candied-winter-melon-filled filling. Just another piece of inane mooncake trivia.

Tai Chong Kok’s version is also not overly starchy. Cooked (dry fried) glutinous rice flour is used as a binder in the nut fillings of all wu ren mooncakes. However, some versions contain a lot more starch than others – after all, the glutinous rice flour can act not only as a binder but as a filler too, and is often used to add bulk. The more flour you use, the less of the expensive nuts you have to put into the filling mixture, and the more profits you make.

What is interesting for me is the dark color of the filling. I don’t think I’ve seen it before; most fillings are neutral-colored. I think this is the result of the use of molasses – maybe?

The filling is made up of generous amounts of sesame, melon and other seeds. But it also has one of my pet peeves when it comes to wu ren nut mixtures – it has “Western” almonds in it! Both my mum and I find this particularly jarring – the hard texture of the almonds (especially if unblanched and untoasted before being added to the filling) is at odds with the more tenderly crunchy melon seeds; they just don’t pair well together. Each bite becomes almost entirely filled with the flavor, aroma and texture of the almonds, drowning out the more delicate taste constitutions of the other nuts and seeds. Unfortunately, nowadays, almonds are a common feature in almost all store-bought wu ren mooncakes. They are big, and thus fill up space easily, and as such are comparatively cheaper to use compared to the other more traditional wu ren nuts.

It is probably too much to hope that a commercial wu ren mooncake will actually have Chinese almonds (lan ren in Mandarin; nam yan in Cantonese) in it ; they are not a cost effective addition where the bottom line is concerned. But they are precisely what make my mum’s home-made version so especially aromatic and delicious. While I may no longer seek that illusive Chinese-almond-filled wu ren, I do sometimes still wish that I can find a commercial wu ren mooncake that is as devoid of Western almonds as it is of Chinese almonds.

Happily for me, this year, we found a wu ren-like (it is not strictly wu ren, but the bakery is selling it as such; and if it’s for me to say at all, I think this is probably a lot more “wu ren” in character than many of the other equally named “wu ren” variants) mooncake that we enjoy quite a lot. We like it enough to have made a repeat purchase.

It is yet another offering from another old-fashioned traditional bakery (see what I mean about my taste-buds’ fixation with all things traditional this year?). This time from Yang Hua Cake House (the name is a little deceiving; in the past, bakeries selling traditional Chinese pastries would quite happily call themselves “cake houses”). This is a bakery I haven’t heard of prior to the Takashimaya Bazaar, and it’s one I’m glad I have found. [I showcased one of their Master Chefs at work in yesterday’s post.]

It’s a cute little thing; standing at under half the height of a regular mooncake, it has an interesting appeal – a mix of the demeanor of a traditional Chinese pastry (and all the heart-strings-pulling attraction that has) and the appearance of a regular mooncake (with all the intendant joy and celebration that entails). I actually much prefer mooncakes of this size, if truth be told; I find them rather attractive.

This “wu ren” mooncake seems to take its inspiration from a combination of both the Hainanese- and Teochew-style lao po bing (“wife’s biscuit” – a very popular traditional Chinese pastry made up of a tender, flaky pastry crust surrounding a candied winter melon filling). There is a fair bit of the sweet melon in the filling, but not excessively so. In fact, I would say that it is not nearly as sweet as many of the other wu ren mooncakes I have tasted.

It is nuttier than a lao po bing filling - obviously; there is quite a generous amount of melon and sesame seeds and other nuts in the filling paste. And… it has no Western almonds! Allelujah! What a find! This in itself makes it a lot more like a “real” wu ren for me.

And what really raises the nut mixture up a notch is the nice sprinkling of finely diced Jin Hua ham; the aromas and flavors from the ham makes the filling a winner for me.

I like this mooncake quite a lot. Everything seems in fine balance – a crust that is well-made, evenly thin, smooth and soft; a filling that is a balanced mix of nuts, seeds, candied winter melon and ham. The flavors work together ; nothing out-competes everything else – it’s harmonious, it’s tasty, it works. The textures blend well together too; complementing and contrasting each other at the same time – crunchy, aromatic nuts and seeds; soft, slightly sticky candied winter melon; robust, meaty and richly flavorful ham.

What’s there not to like?

Another Mid-Autumn offering from Yang Hua that I like is their version of the walnut moon-tart. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, this pastry is actually available year round. While it is known as a walnut moon-tart during the Lantern Festival, it is known simply as a walnut pastry tart the rest of the year. Personally, I have to admit to the quirky habit of eating it only when it is called a moon-tart and not when it is called a pastry-tart. Go figure!

I think the pastry crust is absolutely crucial – it makes or breaks the walnut tart. I’ve tasted versions where the pastry is any combination of the following: too thick, too dense, overly buttery, too soft and crumbly, too hard and dry, or overly moist that it sticks to the back of your teeth in one goopy lump.

This one is very nicely done I think. The crust is melt-in-the-mouth tender, with the right balance of flaky crispiness and soft, crumbly tenderness. It is nicely buttery without being overpowering. When eaten fresh out of the oven (as we had them the other day), these are gorgeous!

The fillings matter less in this tart – as long as they are average or above (as these are), it works fine. The crust is the key. Of course, that doesn’t stop me thinking that the tart will be even better if there are some chopped walnuts mixed into the lotus seed paste filling, instead of having just the three small pieces pressed into the surface of the crust. But that’s just me being impossibly demanding.

I think these are wonderful afternoon tea treats. With a cup of fragrant Chinese tea in one hand, a freshly baked walnut moon-tart in the other, and a stolen quiet, peaceful moment away from the bustle of the city, life feels good!

[Update 22/09/04: I went back to the bazaar today to pick up some more mooncakes, and was a little surprised (not to mention somewhat disoriented, as I rushed to pick up some mooncakes before dashing off to dinner) to discover that in the 13 days since my last visit, things seem to have been changed around a fair bit... there seems to be a couple of new stalls that I didn't see on the previous visit, and a couple of those that I did see the last time seem to have moved places!

Anyway, I suddenly realized today that the wu ren mooncake and the walnut moon-tarts that I have been raving about, and attributing to Yang Hua Cake House are in fact... NOT from Yang Hua Cake House! Though I could have sworn the last time I bought the mooncakes, I got them from Yang Hua (and my mum too is still quite certain that we got them from Yang Hua the last time). But today, lo and behold, they are at the booth set up by Amethyst instead. Or, at least the ones I got from Amethyst today look exactly like the ones I bought 2 weeks ago; I'm just hoping they will taste the same. Unfortunately, I won't know until the Festival itself when we serve up the mooncakes after the Reunion dinner.

My apologies for the unintentional misinformation... if you are looking to pick up some of these wu ren mooncakes, they're at the Amethyst booth. The Teochew style traditional flaky mooncakes are still at Yang Hua.]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

This is not the end of my mooncake eating adventures for the year. There are more mooncakes still to share, but I think we’ve all had enough of a sugar high for one day. So, more to come on another day.

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Shall I Bring a Piglet Home With Me?

For me, an integral part of each Mid-Autumn Festival is the Takashimaya mooncake bazaar. This is the place to go to sample, under one roof, all the different mooncake offerings from most of the major food players in town – hotels, restaurants and bakeries both modern and traditional – plus, some foreign hotels and restaurants as well. Here, you get to discover what the “hottest” new tastes in mooncakes are for the year ; what the creative juices of the chefs have thrown up for the current festival. Deep in the labyrinth of its aisles, your spirit starts to soar with the infectious festive joy and excitement.

The fair is a heady, pulse-elevating, taste-buds-working-over-time experience. Stall after stall of mooncakes and more mooncakes! Tasting samples of all flavors, aromas and shapes are thrust at you from all directions. Your eyes work furiously to take in all the colors and textures. Your palate falls into a deep, swirling whirlpool of tastes and smells. It’s almost trance inducing. It’s intoxicating. It’s exhilarating. It’s pure gluttony - or gastronomy, if you prefer.

This year’s bazaar started on 9 September (and runs through to the day of the Mid-Autumn Festival itself, on 28 September). On the fair’s inaugural day, my mum was already anxious to go down and see what was on offer. She managed to convince me that, my incredibly jam-packed schedule not withstanding, I needed a break, and that I should go visit the bazaar with her during that said break. And so it was on that Thursday afternoon that we spent a hedonistic 1 hour at the fair, plunged headlong into an indulgent orgy of mooncake tasting.

The landscape of this year’s fair is dominated by a gold-colored, pagoda-topped pavilion, while red lanterns hang jauntily from each stall. It’s festive; it’s bustling; it’s exuberant.

Then there are the stretching aisles, lined on both sides with stalls.

Just row after row of stalls; almost 40 stalls - each offering a myriad of mooncake choices.

So, join me, as we take a whirlwind tour of mooncake fantasy-land…

Sitting regally and presiding over the festivities are the “traditional” (more on this later) mooncakes with a baked pastry crust. These come in all sorts of sizes, can be round or square and are filled with a plethora of different fillings - anything ranging from the traditional lotus seed paste and red bean paste, to things like green tea, pandan and red dates.

Actually, if truth be told, this year’s offerings in the baked mooncake category are rather tame, compared to years gone by. There are hardly any outlandish flavors to be found ; the most “cutting edge” one that I can see is Ritz-Carlton’s contribution to the innovation stakes…

Chocolate mooncake. Dark chocolate mooncake at that. Or, more specific still, Valrhona dark chocolate surrounded by a layer of white lotus seed paste before being wrapped in the pastry.

It’s an interesting idea – a marriage of East and West I suppose. But even for a dark chocolate lover like myself (who simply cannot resist all things dark chocolatey), I’m not sure the combination of tastes work all that well. The aggressive nature of the dark chocolate flavor completely overwhelms the rather delicate nuances of the white lotus seed paste. It feels simply like eating dark chocolate really. And I’m not sure I want that when I’m eating a mooncake; I want to be able to feel that I’m eating a mooncake, and not a chunk of Valrhona chocolate (as divine an experience as that always is).

Other than this, almost all the baked crust mooncakes are “safe” and well-known incarnations. And of all the ones I managed to taste, the one version of white lotus seed paste that had my eyes opening wide in pleasant surprise was the one that came out of the kitchens of Royal China at the Raffles Hotel. I have to say, their home-made lotus paste is quite quite exquisite – smooth, silky with an understated sweetness. The aromas and flavors are wonderful! It’s been a long time since a white lotus seed paste mooncake has made me sit up; this one did. I must have tried several dozens of mooncakes by the time I got to their stall, and their offering immediately woke my starting-to-feel-overloaded taste buds up.

While most restaurants and hotels seem content to stay with the tried-and-tested where fillings are concerned, some choose to innovate in the area of presentation.

The Mandarin Hotel takes gift-giving to a new royal level, with six mini mooncakes embossed with the design of a dragon. (I know, lousy picture; but I think you can sort of see an outline of the dragon from the drawing attached to the box.) In a society where gift-giving symbolisms can count for a lot, this is obviously a profitable marketing idea.

I suspect one of the reasons (and probably the main one) why there seems to be very little “push the envelope” activity in the baked mooncakes arena this year is that most (or at least a lot of) Singaporeans seem to like the snow skin crust more than the baked crust. I guess people like me, who simply will not touch anything snow skin, are decidedly in the minority.

What are snow skin mooncakes?

They are mooncakes with a non-bake crust made from flour and lots of shortening. These snow skin mooncakes have to be kept refrigerated.

Originally only available in white (and thus its name), they now come in all sorts of pastel (and even some not so pastel) shades.

They also come highly domed or in the regular mooncake shape.

There is a surfeit of snow skin mooncakes at the bazaar this year – all sorts of spandangled flavors (anything from peanut butter to ginseng, from pomelo to cranberry) in all hues of skin. But perhaps the one flavor that many of the merchants seem to have expended much energy on is the durian. This year, everyone seems to have gotten the same idea as to how to take this particularly South-East Asian (maybe even, peculiarly Singaporean) filling up several notches - by using pure durian paste, instead of mixing durian with lotus seed paste as was the case previously.

I like durian; but I’m not into durian mooncakes. Or snow skin mooncakes for that matter. So unfortunately, I’m not able to tell you how these taste.

Now, the one new snow skin innovation that has me breaking my “no snow skin” rule, and taking a taste, is this: black sesame snow skin.

It is intriguing. Actually, I think it is quite, quite inspired. It sounds obvious, yet no one seems to have thought of it before. This year, several stalls have this on offer. The toasted black sesame, worked into the snow skin, while not the prettiest of sights, gives the crust the kind of incredible aroma and fragrance that only toasted sesame can. Quite lovely.

Oh, and a quick aside: I think the above picture tells a succinct story… the more traditional mooncake juxtaposed with the more modern version. It shows how the Mid-Autumn Festival has evolved with the times, and yet has remained true to its roots in many ways. Okay, enough of the sentimental metaphors already. There are more mooncakes to talk about…

Another mooncake that Singaporeans seem to love is the Teochew crispy yam mooncake. It used to be that this could only be bought at the Crown Prince Hotel. Nowadays, many, many other hotels, restaurants and bakeries have jumped on the bandwagon.

While these crispy yam mooncakes can come in small, cute domes

…or large, handsome rounds… they are not all created equal.

The crust makes or breaks this mooncake; the filling is pretty standard. For a lip-smacking, ooh-and-aah-evoking crispy yam mooncake experience, the pastry has to be (in my opinion at least) crispy and flaky, yet melt-in-the-mouth tender, with hardly any sense of solidity or denseness to it. And… with a minimal amount of greasy mouth feel. The crust really has to be near perfect for this mooncake to be worth the eating.

And Eater Palace still seems to have one of the best ones around; surpassing even Crown Prince’s, in my eyes. I love the lightness of their crust.

Here are some fresh out of the deep fryer and left to drain (don’t remember which stall these were from).

Ugly picture… but I just want to show you the insides of the crispy yam mooncake. A smooth, rich paste of yam surrounds a salted duck egg yolk, and is in turn itself enveloped in a thin layer of delicate, flaky, crispy pastry.

Unlike the other mooncakes which usually do well with a few days (or even a week) of rest after being made – giving time for the flavors to deepen and the crust to mellow a little – the crispy yam is best eaten on the day it is fried. By the second day, the crust will have lost a lot of its crispy aromatic appeal.

This is another type of mooncake that I quite enjoy – the Shanghai-style mooncake. Unfortunately, it’s not a common sight in Singapore (and is more readily available in Malaysia instead). Wandering through the fair, I spotted an appearance at only one stall – Bengawan Solo. I guess their version is passable; I’m not terribly enthusiastic about their crust.

The key to a sublime taste experience is once again in the texture of the pastry – the lightness and tenderness of the crumb are critical factors. It should be crumbly with a light touch of crispiness and a meltingly tender mouth feel as it hits the palate. The amount of butter used also plays an important part ; too buttery and it overwhelms everything else.

These are another very popular variation. I think (though I could be very wrong in this) they are based on the Shanghainese mooncake, but given a Cantonese (or is it Teochew) twist.

Actually, I would put the point that they’re not really mooncakes; although they are treated as such – but only during the Mid-Autumn Festival at that! The rest of the year, they are available quite easily, and are known simply as “walnut tarts”, or sometimes “walnut pastries”. But come mid-autumn, they are “walnut moontarts”. Go figure.

Either way, I like these a lot.

I was particularly taken with the ones from this stall. I ended up taking quite a few home with me. A taste review will be in tomorrow’s post, so look out for that.

They were wonderfully fresh – just out of the oven, and placed into their cheery, auspiciously mandarin-colored paper cradles.

Oh, look at those mini piglets (bottom right hand corner). Aren’t they just the cutest?

Now, I’ve talked about my love of custard mooncakes before; of how I first fell in love with them in Hong Kong more than a decade ago.

In recent years, I’ve managed to get my yearly fix closer to home – from East Ocean Restaurant. So it was with great anticipation that I visited their stall at the bazaar. But oh dear! I felt a little let down. I had a taste of their custard mooncake. It was still as fragrant and aromatic as I remembered it. The custard was still as rich and flavorful. But what was this thick, somewhat gooey stickiness against the back of my teeth? I looked over at my mum, and she verbalized my exact thoughts. The stall attendant confirmed that it was still the same chef as per previous years making the mooncakes. My mum suggested to me that maybe it was because the mooncakes were still very fresh, and would settle down after a few days of storage. I was in two minds about getting a box and letting it rest at home. In the end, I decided I really wasn’t keen on that sticky feeling, and didn’t want to take the “risk” of bringing some home, and then finding that they stayed sticky. What was I going to do with a whole box of custard mooncakes then?

As we walked a little further on, I spotted the Peninsula Hotel stand. This is the grand-dame of Hong Kong Peninsula, and not our local Peninsula. Wow! This is a first. They have not participated in the bazaar before.

My heart leapt a little when I noticed that the only mooncake variety they were offering at the stall was the custard one. Ooh! Maybe theirs would be even better than the Zen one that I liked so much.

In appearance, theirs is rather different. Instead of the regular brown colored baked pastry crust, theirs is a bright eggy yellow with only a touch of browning along the edges. Hmmm…

The custard filling inside is an even brighter orangey yellow. Hmmm… again. It doesn’t seem quite natural for a custard, if you know what I mean. Taste-wise, the flavors are rich and full-bodied – very deeply eggy, with a certain crumbliness. Interesting…

I’ll leave it at that.

These ones I’m quite excited about – from Yang Hua Cake House (the same stall I got the walnut mooncakes from). The display name tag calls them “Hainanese Fusion Mooncakes”, although I’m not quite sure what makes them Hainanese, as opposed to another Chinese dialect group. In appearance, they are rather distinctive – at merely ½ inch or so in height, they are half as tall as regular mooncakes. This is the first time I’ve seen mooncakes shaped more like round discs rather than tall “cakes”.

I rather like their wu ren (mixed nuts) mooncake. It’s different from the “normal” wu ren filling, in that it is the candied winter melon that takes a more central role. In fact, the filling is somewhat reminiscent of lao po bing (wife’s biscuit), only with more nuts and sesame seeds mixed in. And I’m totally glad they have not put in any “Western” almonds – the most common ploy in wu ren mooncakes, to bulk up the nut filling at a much lower cost. While like everyone else, they do not use the much more expensive Chinese almond (lan ren - Mandarin; nam yan - Cantonese), I am quite happy with their mix of nuts. Flavor and texture-wise, almost everything seems in good balance. Of all the commercially-made wu ren mooncakes I’ve tasted so far this year, theirs have come closest to hitting the spot. Not quite like mum’s, but quite satisfying all the same. (Taste review with photos will be in tomorrow’s post.)

Isn’t this a sight for sore eyes? I think this is one of the most tempting sights… tray after tray of fresh-from-the-oven mooncakes sitting there in their full golden brown glory, awaiting new homes and new owners.

Interestingly, Yang Hua also has on offer a wu ren variant that has a flaky crust – but baked, and not deep fried. A unique idea; although the pastry tastes rather floury and bland I feel. I still much prefer the aroma of the regular baked crust

Now, these I want to share with you, not so much for their taste (I’ve never tasted them, so I’m not sure what they taste like), but for their value in nostalgia and sense of tradition.

You see, these are probably pretty close to what the “true” and original mooncakes looked and tasted like. Back in Ancient China, things like lotus seed paste and red bean paste were rare (perhaps even non-existent) luxuries for the peasantry. In those days, mooncakes were made of a simple flour and lard dough, wrapped around a little bit of filling made from more lard and some candied winter melon (which was cheap and accessible) for a touch of sweetness. There were also no pretty moulds with which to shape the mooncakes; instead they were rather rough-hewn, rustic creations with little thought for aesthetics or presentation. The most elaborate decoration was probably just the stamping of the mooncake with some red food dye to mark the auspiciousness of the food item. The concept of mooncakes then was obviously completely different from what it is today.

These ones in the picture (again offered by Yang Hua) probably rank highly on the true-to-tradition scale. I’m told that the filling is made from lard, candied winter melon and something else (I forget what). The dough is almost bread-like and is made simply from flour and more lard. The mooncakes are shaped into simple discs and baked until a deep, rich brown, and stamped with the traditional auspicious character.

Here’s an interesting bit of trivia: it is only in the last couple of decades that the mooncake, as we know it, has made its way back into China and mainland Chinese society. Sounds strange? Well, after the Communists came to power, all traditional Chinese festivals and celebrations were frowned upon. These came to be celebrated only by the overseas Chinese communities, particularly in Hong Kong, Taiwan and South East Asia. In these places, many of the traditional festival foods evolved and changed with the times. Chefs, exposed to new ideas and cultures, created new “modern” versions of the traditional festive foods. While such foods became the accepted festival traditions in these overseas Chinese communities, they were in fact quite foreign to the China Chinese themselves! Festivals were probably still celebrated quietly, in private, and the food made in conjunction with these celebrations continued to be those of the ancient forebears. It is only with the reopening of China to outside influences that there has come a “reverse flow” of culture, if you like, back from these overseas Chinese communities to the mainland Chinese.

So, the baked mooncakes, all perfectly moulded into all sorts of designs with all sorts of “modern” fillings, and which we in this part of the world term as “traditional mooncakes”, are in actual fact a “modern” invention. So modern that the Chinese in China have only recently jumped on the bandwagon and started enjoying these versions, while abandoning the more rustic, truly traditional variants behind.

Here’s another truly traditional mooncake – this time Teochew style. There is that same simple, casual, rustic shape; but the pastry is flakier and lighter than the previous Hainanese one – the same sort of crust that is found in other traditional Chinese pastries like lao po bing (wife’s biscuit) and so on. I have to confess that this pastry entices me a lot more than the Hainan-style one.

These Teochew mooncakes come in huge “family size” versions or in smaller mini sizes.

Another great picture of the juxtaposition of the past with the present : the simple, clean, unpretentious lines of the traditional mooncake with its low-key tan color and just a splash of red for a bit of excitement, against the bright, “look at me” hue of the modern bing pi (snow skin) version, with its intricate design and detailing. Interesting, no?

While salivating over the various mooncakes at Yang Hua Cake House’s stall, I spot their Master hard at work, shaping and making the traditional Teochew mooncakes with nary a pause. With practiced ease, his hands move quickly and elegantly in a smooth, continuous rhythm, rolling, filling and shaping the mooncakes.

All the ingredients are neatly laid out in front of him – the dough, some already portioned out, whimsically shaped and waiting to be rolled out, and the fillings: lotus seed paste, red bean paste and candied winter melon. He even has bowls of the different types of nuts that are used in the wu ren mooncake on display in the corner.

Here’s a closer look.

But what really catches my eye are these, sitting on a tray tucked away in the back corner of the stall. These are balls of candied winter melon filling jauntily wearing a cap of red bean paste. What an interesting combination of tastes and textures! This is the filling that goes into their special traditional Teochew large la bing.

I watch fascinated as the Master continues to churn out a fully completed mooncake every few seconds.

First, a piece of well kneaded, artistically shaped dough is taken.

And quickly rolled out into a thin circle.

With smooth, graceful sweeps of his hand, and in a blink of an eye (too quick for me to capture on camera even!), he places a large ball of filling in the center of the dough. Then, cupping it in both hands, he gently and smoothly wraps the dough around the filling. His hands move eloquently around the dough, gently massaging and stretching it so that it spreads out to a consistent thickness around the filling. His experience ensures that the dough neither tears from being too thin, nor clumps up in unappetizing thickness. (And yes, I’m quite sure those are traces of red bean paste on his nails! )

Within seconds (definitely under 30 seconds) he has a smooth, round ball sitting in his palm.

A square of parchment paper is placed under the mooncake ball before it is gently flattened to create the characteristic disc-like shape.

Next, he dips four fingers into the bowls of black and white sesame seeds, then very carefully imprints the sesame seeds onto the surface of the mooncake.

The final touch: the auspicious red stamp.

I ask if he will hold the finished masterpiece up and let me take a photo of him. He almost blushes in embarrassment at the attention; then holds up the mooncake with a fair degree of pride and looks into the camera. But he was too shy to smile.

The newly shaped mooncake goes onto a tray, awaiting its turn in the oven. Above it sits its fresh-out-of-the-oven cousins, smelling gorgeous.

A round-up of mooncakes cannot be complete without talking about piglets. I’ve mentioned them before in my earlier post. These were traditionally made from scraps of mooncake pastry. Unwilling to waste the leftover dough, bakers gathered the scraps together and shaped them into small piglets. These were baked and sold as cheap Festival cookies for the children.

The traditional “packaging” for these pastry piglets is a small plastic basket. Why baskets in this context I’m not too sure. I do know that in the olden days in China, adulterous men and women (or was it just the women?) were each locked into separate bamboo pig cages (zhu long) and then drowned at sea. Why this tragic imagery should be evoked at a time of happy festivities, and in connection with an innocent snack for children, I do not know. Perhaps someone can enlighten on this?

Anyway, here’s a closer look at the piglets in a basket. Of course, these modern versions come hygienically wrapped in a layer of plastic before being placed in the basket, unlike in the days of my childhood when the piglets would oftentimes sit for a couple of days in the bakery shop, gathering a healthy layer of dust, before they are taken home and eaten.

These even more modern versions had me sighing with delight. They are so very, very cute! All chubby and adorable! They even have black, shiny eyes! And I just love that ribbon around their necks! I suspect that these are probably filled piglets – most likely filled with lotus seed paste. These piglets seem too round and big to be made up of only pastry and nothing else. They would be way too dense and hard to be palatable. And at the price that these are going for, and given that they come sitting so elegantly and demurely in a classy plum-colored gift-box, I’m sure they must be filled. So there you have it. Even the humble piglet has gone up-market – no longer just a hunk of plain, not-terribly-tasty pastry dough, and no longer simply residing in cheap plastic baskets. Instead they are now tasty full-fledged mooncakes, nestling luxuriously in tissue and living out of a new, swanky, high-class gift-box condo. Not bad for a small piglet!

I was so very tempted to bring a few piglets home with me. But I knew better. Every year, I am lured and seduced by their cuteness. Yet once home, I find them rather uninspiring in the taste department. While I adore the pastry crust of mooncakes, I like them in small amounts, and not in one hefty chunk. So this year, I resisted. I gazed longingly at these well-fattened piglets for a while, then turned and walked away, not daring to look back in case I caved in to their forlorn looks of rejection.

Instead, I went and picked up some traditional Chinese snacks.

Finally, what is the Mid-Autumn Festival without lanterns. Lanterns of all shapes, colors and designs.

I have so many fond childhood memories of choosing and playing with lanterns at each Mooncake Festival. In those days, all the lanterns were carefully crafted by hand, using pieces of fragile translucent colored paper stuck over a wooden frame. And when a candle was placed and lit inside it, gorgeous plays of color and of shadow and light mesmerized my young eyes. Nowadays, sadly, a lot of the lanterns come made of hard, unromantic plastic and worse still, are battery operated! No candles required! But, but… that’s what lanterns are all about, surely.

These ones catche my eye – lotus shaped lanterns that are still made from paper. A rather uncommon design I have to say. The more common ones are like the fishes hanging in the background (I can’t tell you how many of that design I had in my childhood!).

Unfortunately, for every paper lantern, there are several more gaudy plastic, battery-operated ones hanging near by.

Just looking at the lanterns… just being at the bazaar… tasting and sampling all the mooncakes… one can’t help but be caught up by and uplifted with a big, happy sense of festive exuberance. Yes, the Mid-Autumn Festival is definitely around the corner. In the meantime, I have eight more days to indulge and stuff myself silly with mooncakes!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Stttrrrreeeeettcchhhhiiiinnnngggg It Out

I recently had my first mooncake of the year… Yes, it is that time of the year again; mooncake time of the year.

But have you noticed? “Mooncake time” has stretched progressively over the years, and now lasts for a lot longer than is traditional. It used to be that mooncakes were only sold after the Hungry Ghosts Festival (which runs for the whole of the seventh lunar month; a time when it is said that the Gates of Hell are flung open, and the souls of the dead are released and allowed to wander the planet freely and to mingle with the living) had ended. It was deemed inauspicious to sell mooncakes during the ghoulish seventh month – after all, the Mid-Autumn Festival is considered one of the most auspicious of the major Chinese festivals; and the twain must not meet.

This meant that, with the Mid-Autumn Festival (or more casually known as the “mooncake festival”) falling on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month (the day when the moon is said to be at its roundest and brightest for the whole year), you essentially got to eat mooncakes for about 15 days each year – from the 1st to the 15th of the eighth month.

However, the powers that be in the hard-hitting world of commerce decided that they weren’t making enough profits (despite the daylight-robbery-esque prices of mooncakes during the festival); they started to sell mooncakes in the last week of the Hungry Ghosts Festival, figuring that modern society was less superstitious and people wouldn’t mind buying and eating mooncakes during the tail-end of the 7th month. And they were right; consumers lapped up the opportunity to indulge in these sweet treats for an extra week.

With dollar signs flashing in their eyes, retailers soon pushed the yearly launch of mooncakes to the middle of the seventh month (hey, what’s another week between money-takers and money-givers, right?); mooncake eating now stretched over one full month.

Then, a couple of years back, I started noticing that some bakeries and restaurants (thank goodness hotels on the whole have stuck to the less-insane mid-seventh month launch date) were rolling out the mooncakes at about the same time the first joss-sticks were lighted at the start of the Hungry Ghosts Festival! This made for six weeks of mooncakes! That was pushing it a little I thought.

But this year seems to take the cake… um, the mooncake that is. Mooncakes were already on sale in the middle of the 6th lunar month! Two full months before the festival proper! The festival this year falls on 28 September; the very first mooncakes started to trickle onto the market at the end of July. To me, this seems overdone; it's robbing the festival of all meaning and significance. I mean, there are only so many mooncakes you can eat before you get well and truly sick of them – they are after all very, very sweet and rich confections. By the time you get around to the festival itself, you are not going to be wanting anymore mooncakes.

Another sad case of commercial greed sending a bona fide festival that once held much significance and joy, to its early dollar bills-lined grave?

I used to love mooncakes. Next to Chinese New Year, the Mid-Autumn Festival was probably my favorite Chinese festival. Years ago, I would look forward with much anticipation to the annual festival. Those two weeks in the run-up to the festival were so precious; a time to cherish and enjoy every opportunity to indulge in these yummy sweet delights. Now, mooncakes don’t really move me very much anymore. I still like them, but those heady, heart-a-flutter, joyous feelings (quite like the first flush of love) are gone. It is hard to get excited about something two months ahead of schedule; it’s what I call eating out of context!

I’ve not had any urge to buy the mooncakes that have been launched so far this year. The only reason I’ve gotten to eat some recently is because a dear friend brought me a box of them as a gift – a box of mooncakes hand-carried all the way from Hong Kong no less.

I have to admit: I still enjoy the “ceremony” of opening up a fresh box of mooncakes; I have a sort of personal “breaking into a new box of mooncakes” ritual, leftover from the days when mooncakes were a much scarcer commodity.

These ones from my friend came in a lavishly illustrated metal box (see top picture), as opposed to the traditional paper box. I spent a few moments taking in the lovely countenance of “Lady Moon” with her rabbit. I gazed at the depiction of the Hong Kong skyline, and reminded myself it has been more than a year since I was last in the territory, and perhaps it was time to make another visit soon for lots of good food and shopping. Before my mind wandered too far away, I jolted back into the present, and enthusiastically pulled open the lid of the box…

And a glorious sight it was that greeted me… four round, glossily glazed, lusciously golden brown discs stared out at me. This first glimpse into a box of mooncakes is the first in a series of my “favorite” opening-of-a-new-box-of-mooncakes moments. There’s nothing quite like four suave, highly tanned mooncakes gazing at me to get my taste buds into a right tizzy.

One of the mooncakes was lovingly removed from its plastic cradle within the box. A sharp knife was run quickly and painlessly down its center… and immediately, it revealed its glorious secret…

Two rich, shiny golden orbs blinked dazzlingly in the sunlight that was streaming through my kitchen window. Oooh… this was a box of white lotus seed paste (lian yong) mooncakes with double (salted duck’s egg) yolks.

I’d have to admit that I’ve never been a great fan of Hong Kong’s Maxim’s mooncakes (sorry, BL ), but these were nice versions.

The yolks were incredibly fresh: rich, vibrant, bright hues of sunset with a luscious, glowing sheen.

The white lotus seed paste was of an appetizingly natural color, as opposed to some of the rather exaggerated shades of “pale” that we sometimes see here – which in all probability are the results of adding some kind of starch (possibly potato starch) to the lotus seed paste mixture, both to add bulk and to lighten the color.

The lotus paste in these HK mooncakes were of a delightfully silken smoothness and softness – a result of a lot of oil being used to cook and mix the paste. It made for delicious, but incredibly sinful eating. Everything was very fresh: the pastry, the lotus paste and the yolks.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Since we are talking about mooncakes, let’s talk about the types that I like…

I’m not a snow-skin ("bing pi" or literal translation: ice skin) mooncake person at all; mooncakes with the baked pastry crust are the only ones I will eat. I find the snow-skin too sweet; and after discovering, many years back, just how much shortening (or lard traditionally) and sugar goes into making the snow-skin pastry, I’ve never been able to bring myself to it eat again. It has a lot more fat and sugar than the baked pastry skin (which in itself already has a fair bit of oil). It is rather deceptive I know; the snow skin feels less rich and oily, but there is a whole lot more fat and sugar in it by necessity, to get the pastry to that requisite soft, silky, pliable and palatable texture. (For me, it has been another classic case of being turned off a food after discovering the “secrets” behind the recipes and realizing how terribly unhealthy the food is; taste for taste, I just can’t justify the caloric consumption of a snow skin mooncake over the baked pastry mooncake. I have to do right by my tummy after all! )

…and by my eyes and taste-buds too. I love the look and taste of the baked crust. I really do. As with almost all things baked in an oven, it is aromatic in that special way that only things baked in an oven can be. That special golden, tanned yumminess that is quite irreplaceable.

The crust is easily my favorite part of the mooncake. Yet, I don’t like it when it is all just pastry either… family and friends always suggest to me that I should simply buy and eat “piglets in a basket” instead, since these are just mooncake pastry dough shaped into little piglets, baked and sold in tiny little plastic baskets. It has no fillings; just pastry dough. The tradition of selling these “piglets in a basket” evolved from bakers wanting to find a way to use up leftover mooncake dough; they thus shaped the scrap pieces of pastry into cute piglets and sold them as a cheap, cookie-like Festival snack for children. But even as a child, I never took to the little piglets. No, much as I like the pastry, I don’t like an entire dense chunk of it; mine must come as a thin layer over some scrumptious filling…

I’m quite fussy about the number of yolks in the mooncakes too. I don’t really like having more than one salted egg yolk in my mooncakes; I think it upsets the intricate balance between pastry, lotus paste and yolk too much.

Ideally, each wedge of mooncake should have a thin layer of crust, a nice amount of smooth, silken, sweet lotus paste, and just a touch of yolk to add a nuance of saltiness. Too much yolk and it just gets too stomach-sinkingly rich; a feeling that sometimes even cups and cups of Chinese tea cannot remedy. Not pleasant. Two yolks in a mooncake are still tolerable; but really, when you hit four yolks in one mooncake (usually the preferred variety for business gifts as it symbolizes an abundance of golden riches), it’s hardly palatable - in my opinion at least. There’s hardly any room for the lotus paste; it’s almost like eating salted yolks wrapped in pastry!

My all-time favorite mooncake is my mum’s home-made wu ren (mixed nut with Jin Hua ham) mooncake. This is the only wu ren mooncake that I (and the whole family for that matter) truly love; I don’t particularly fancy many of the store-bought ones, which are usually bulked up with a lot of starch – nuts are expensive ingredients – and which almost always leave out the Chinese almonds ("nam yan" in Cantonese), because they are expensive, but which have a unique texture and add incredible fragrance and aroma to the mooncakes. This is the one mooncake my dad always requests from my mum each year. Sadly, I don’t think we are supposed to make mooncakes this year – I think someone mentioned the other day that, in light of the family’s recent bereavement, it is customary to abstain from making celebratory food. We can buy and eat mooncakes, but not make them. Go figure. Maybe I heard wrong. Hopefully I heard wrong.

So, my most preferred mooncakes in descending order of love:

• Mum’s home-made wu ren mooncake
• A tie between: dou sha (red bean paste) mooncake with melon seeds; AND bai lian yong (white lotus seed paste) mooncake with a single yolk
• Custard mooncake *
• Regular (brown) lian yong (lotus seed paste) mooncake with a single yolk
• Teochew-style deep fried crispy yam paste mooncake **

* I tasted this variety for the very first time in Hong Kong more than 10 years ago; the mooncakes were from the Zen restaurant in Pacific Place. It was love at first bite: rich, thick, smooth, eggy custard wrapped in fragrant golden brown pastry. After that, every year I would find some means of getting a box of the stuff brought to me from Hong Kong. Then, some years back, East Ocean restaurant in Singapore started producing them – and they do a credible version. So now it is a mere short car ride to get my yearly fix.

** I used to like this a lot. But suddenly, one day, I just fell out of love. I still think these crispy deep fried mooncakes taste very good whilst you are eating them; but the after-feeling is not so pleasant – that feeling of over-greased richness, that lump of heaviness that sits at the bottom of your stomach. And these mooncakes don’t keep well at all; they are best eaten on the day they are made. They’re still okay the next day, but it’s pretty much downhill all the way after that. Having said that, I still like to savor a small piece of this very fragrant and highly more-ish concoction once in a while – oh, maybe every other year or so; but that is about as far as the love affair goes, at my age.

Thus far, I have not been able to get involved with any of the spandangled, new-age flavors that have been rolled out over the last few years – things like durian-, mango-, coffee- or green tea-flavored mooncakes. There are even things like birds’ nest mooncakes and XO (Cognac) mooncakes! The only reaction I have been able to muster is: huh? I think there is something to be said for having boundaries in creativity, and that includes creativity in food; I’m not sure about the merits of innovation for innovation’s sake alone. It’s amazing the things people will do to entice consumers to part with a few more dollars. Some traditional flavors are worth honoring, I feel.

The one “newer” flavor that I find acceptable is pumpkin. But that is not even really “new”. It is a natural extension of the Teochew yam mooncake (which in itself is a derivative of the famous Teochew dessert or nee that oftentimes is served with both yam and pumpkin pastes).

I’m not taken with ice cream mooncakes either. Sorry, but I really can’t see what the fuss is about; if I want ice cream (which I can eat year round on-demand), I would order a sundae; I don’t need to have it in the shape of a mooncake.

However, not all innovations are bad. Last year, a friend gave me a box of jelly (agar-agar) mooncakes, and those I really enjoyed.

So, yes, I’m probably a mixed up gal when it comes to mooncakes; but ultimately I’m also a traditionalist at heart.

And now that I’ve shot my mouth off about my mooncake preferences, what’s your mooncake fix of choice?

It’s still another month to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but most surely, the madness has already long started; the moon is not yet round, but mooncakes are already all around.

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
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