Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Happy Moon Festival!

September 19, 2013 is the Moon Festival for Year 2013.  The Moon Festival is also known as Mid-Autumn-Festival which is held on the 15th day of the eighth month in the Chinese Calendar.  Just like Thanksgiving in the United States, the Moon Festival is one of the most important traditional events for the Chinese. 

When the Chinese people talk about the Moon Festival, there are a lot of beautiful stories and poems about it.  The Moon Festival is also an occasion for Family reunions.  When the full moon rises, families get together to eat the mooncakes and celebrate this festival. 

The mooncake is the typical food that everybody eats during the Moon Festival.  People send mooncakes to families and friends as gifts to celebrate Moon Festival.

Most mooncakes consist of a thin, tender pastry skin enveloping the different filling.  The traditional styles fillings are normally Lotus seed paste (蓮蓉, lían róng),  Sweet bean paste (豆沙, dòu shā), Jujube paste (棗泥, zǎo ní), and Five kernel (五仁, wǔ rén).   Now the fillings of Mooncakes have diversified to include just about anything which can be made into a paste, such as taro, pineapple, etc.  And also people use different ingredients to make the different taste, such as coffee, chocolate, tiramisu, green tea, etc.

Happy Moon Festival!  Try the mooncakes.  You will find something you like!