Monday, September 15, 2008

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival


Did you know that yesterday was the Moon Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival? We almost forgot. You know, living in US, far away from home and families, some of the traditional stuffs started to fade away. But once we remembered it, we rushed to Chinatown to get the one thing that is the most important for the festival, the moon cakes. Because we were too late, there were only several boxes of them left, and we cannot choose the brand or flavor. But we enjoyed it anyway. I wanted to explain more about the moon festival and its history, but found a much better and complete version on the Wikipedia. Go ahead and read the whole thing, I found it very interesting.

There is not many people in my generation know how to make chinese lanterns any more. My sister lives in HongKong, so she took her family to a famous park to view the beautiful lanterns. I can only watch some pictures online. But I think the spirit of the festival is to be with your family and loved ones. Even though we cannot fly home and be with our parents physically, we always remember to call them. These traditional holidays always make me homesick. But at least we can buy the mooncakes locally, so our family don't have to send it oversea. Oh, if you have never tasted mooncake before, try look for them at your local Chinese grocery stores or bakery. They are very unique and tasty, some can be very sweet too. That's probably why we drink some nice tea with it. My personal favorite and the very popular one is the double salty egg yolks with white lotus seed paste. But there are lots of other varieties, and mooncakes from northern China, mid-east China and GuangDong are totally different. The ones you get from Chinatown are GuangDong style, which is much richer than the other two. Cannot wait to go home and finish the rest of it. Mmmm, YUMMY!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Love your blog on the festival and the explaination of it's history. The moon cakes look very rich and sweet. Super to hear that traditions are still a part of your life and that they bring you a feeling of strong family ties. Thanks for sharing. I'll have to make a point of trying a moon cake.