The Mid-Autumn Festival
Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival! And even though I just arrived to Spain for my 2 week holidays, I scheduled this post in advance to share some facts about the festivity.
Traditionally, the lunar calendar was used in China, instead of the solar calendar. That explains why today, September 27th, it is the “mid” autumn festival: according to the lunar calendar, the autumn season starts in August.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is always celebrated on a full moon night and the tradition says you have to look at the moon and eat mooncakes (月饼 yuebing). Since 2008 it is a national holiday (which means no work! yay!) but this year it fell on a Sunday (oooh!).
There are several legends which are supposed to be the basis for the moon-watching habits of this day. They differ on the details so let’s keep with the basics: there was a woman called Chang’E who drank an immortality elixir and flew to the moon, where she had to set residency. Other stories say that there is a rabbit living with her on the moon and the rabbit silhouette can be seen if you carefully look at the full moon. You can read a couple of the legends in Wikipedia, but they don’t mention the rabbit.
What would a holiday be without a commercial part? The traditional gift for the Mid-Autumn Festival are mooncakes, and thousands of tons are sold and gifted during the weeks before the holiday.
A not so traditional mooncake I tried once. I was told it was a Yunnan specialty.
Mooncakes are round pastries of different sizes and quite thick. The filling can be anything from red bean paste to meat, including egg yolk and nuts. They are a calorie bomb! I checked a 10 cm diameter mooncake and it had 1,000 calories!! (That is basically half of all the calories you should eat in a day). If you eat a mooncake without having a glass of water close you can be in great danger of dying, as they are super dry and can easily stick in your mouth and throat. The truth is that almost no one likes eating mooncakes, but it is a social obligation to buy them and gift them. Particularly for companies, who buy boxes of mooncakes to give to their clients and employees.
During the previous weeks, China is flooded with these pastries and it is actually very difficult to not receive one. However, as I said before, no one really enjoys them and many of them end up in the trash. What a waste!
One of the regular mooncakes no one really is a big fan of.
But Chinese people have the perfect solution for this. A few years ago, companies started giving mooncake coupons instead of giving the actual box with mooncakes. So the customers/employees would need to go to the bakery selling those particular mooncakes to pick them for free using the coupon. And as many people are not interested in the mooncakes, a new species of “recycler” appeared on the streets: they will stand on busy roads with a sign that says “Recycle mooncake coupons here”. I will explain each step of this recycling process, which C. explained to me:
- Bakery A prints coupons to swap for mooncake boxes. This coupons are valued at 100 RMB and they sell them to Company B for 85 RMB.
- Company B is very happy that they got 100 RMB value for only 85. They give the coupons to their clients.
- Mister C is a client of Company B and he got the mooncakes coupon. He doesn’t want the mooncakes so he sells the coupon to the recycler for 40 RMB.
- The recycler resells the coupons to Bakery A for 50 RMB.
So: no mooncake needed to be manufactured. Bakery A earned 35 RMB per coupon; Company B had a nice gesture with their clients; Mister C earned 40 RMB and the recycler earned 10 RMB. Everybody is happy and not even a gram of flour was wasted!
This year, I have received a box of 8 regular mooncakes. C. received a coupon for Haagen Dazs mooncakes, which are the most precious treasure someone can ever get: it is said that they are very good! (And are probably the only mooncakes people would queue for, except for the meat mooncakes, which are also good but can be eaten all year round). So we went to pick our very expensive mooncakes (valued at 400 RMB) and this was the line to pick them:
Absolutely crazy!! You couldn’t even see the end!!
I was scared they would run out of mooncakes by the time we reached the beginning of the line, but they were well prepared and that didn’t happen. However, it seems we had not looked carefully at our coupon as what we got were not the normal Haagen Dazs mooncakes, but some special ice cream that they only manufacture for Mid-Autumn Festival.
On the left, the normal Haagen Dazs mooncakes everybody raves about.
The ice cream sandwich we got (a box of 6). It was very good!
Happy Mid-Autumn Festival to you all! Did you celebrate it?
Ha, they sound like Christmas fruitcakes! Gifted, but never eaten. Though I have seen fruitcakes used as doorstops. :)
Your ice-cream sandwich looks great! Andy has never mentioned mooncakes. I guess now I know why! (I should give him one and see if he freaks out.)
I have never tried a Christmas fruitcake before but it sounds interesting, haha. I am sure there must be mooncakes there, Chinese people always continue their traditions abroad!
Dear Marta and autumnashbough,
I am unsure as to whether my comment has got through. Here is my second attempt at submitting this comment.
That is indeed a mooncake, and some of them of this kind can be very yummy. I feature many different types of mooncakes and autumn festival offerings in my post at http://soundeagle.wordpress.com/2012/10/02/if-my-name-were-moon-tonight/
I have found that some of my Western friends, especially if they are elderly, can be reluctant to try a mooncake because of its novelty. Perhaps as they grow older, they are culinarily less adventurous, especially with food from a different culture.
Yes, I think some older people tend to be not very adventurous in regards to food!
HaHaHa! We both seem to be commenting simultaneously. :)
Dear Marta,
I am pleased to inform you that in my said post entitled “If My Name Were Moon Tonight…”, I have hyperlinked your post to mine so that my readers can visit your post about the mid-autumn festival.
It is very difficult to not receive a moon cake this season!
Hope you got many nut and chocolate ones, and no eggs ;)
Chocolate?? I have never seen them! I always get the nasty ones.xD
That first one, I would never think it is a mooncake if you never told me!
We haven’t got that far as to using coupons to substitute for mooncakes. The whole process sounds like an awesome way of transferring money from the companies to a middleman and bakery.
I don’t think we will see this in Malaysia. The mooncakes are all manufactured in factories months ahead, and they simply have to sell them all by hook or by crook. I don’t think they will do the coupon thing..
So people still enjoy their mooncakes in Malaysia, I guess! In China,they have become more like a punishment, haha.
Growing up in the tropics, moon cakes were only gifted to close members of the family and generally speaking, it tended to be of high quality and appreciated by all. I believe they were all locally made. There were couple of moon cakes that we were specific to the State Capital where I lived. These days, I note in blogs that a 5stars hotel in Singapore has produced some very expansive moon cakes and fancy ,unusual moon cakes have been churned out by a bakery in one Malaysian town, with long queues outside its door. No good was the fancy moon cake, it had sold out and the blogger had to make her own.
I heard the moon cakes from China are not great but the best ones are from Hong Kong but are very expansive.
The local moon cakes I had in London were a far cry from the ones I grew up with.
I have never tried the Hong Kong mooncakes! In China the fancy ones are also expensive. My favourite ones are the meat ones that are typical in Shanghai and Suzhou, those are cheap and tasty! Not dry and heavy as the normal ones.
I meant so good was the fancy moon cake, it had sold out and the blogger had to make her own.
No mid autumn festivities for us here:(
I was only once during the festival in China in 2012 and my in-laws had tons of moon cakes, actually so much that they had to give 90% away as the remaining ten percent were still too much for us to finish within several weeks!
You went back to Europe already? Yes, usually people get too many mooncakes. I still have a lot in Suzhou waiting for me, haha.
Yes, back in good old Germany :(
We got some mooncakes here from some Chinese friends but my wife ate them all :(
Meh, don’t worry too much :P
The local university in my new town has what they call the Asian Moon Festival, so my husband and I went there, but since it was mostly for small children we just watched the performances and left when they invited the children to do the red lion dance. My hometown had tons of celebrations, but I haven’t had actual moon cake since then!
Oh, I didn’t know there were mooncakes also in Japan! I hope they are better than the Chinese, haha.
Puaj mooncakes! Menudo ladrillo insalubre. Pobres chinos.
Jaja, ya no se los come nadie…
Hey, have you tried 绿豆碰？ It’s very good! I also like those little round mooncakes that are filled with red bean paste and an egg yolk, i.e. 蛋黄酥.
I don’t think I have tried 绿豆碰! Is it a Taiwanese mooncake? I had an egg one the other day. It was, well, dry, haha. The taste is okeish, but it is soooo filling!
The standard 绿豆碰 is a mooncake with white flaky skin and fluffy green bean paste fillings, but there are variations that can include things such as minced meat and curries in the fillings along with the green bean paste. Taiwan is not the only country that makes these, but Taiwanese ones are the best, IMO.
And this is the 蛋黄酥 I was referring to… Is it the one you had?
But if you don’t like dry pastries, you probably won’t like either of them.
Mmmm no, I don’t think I have had that one! I thought it was the normal one with egg yolk.
I’ve never heard about the recycle coupon scheme! That is so crazy and complicated (only in China). Still, it’s better than wasting mooncakes.
I don’t like them either, although a lot of the new bakeries in China like 89 Degrees started coming out with hip and cool mooncakes/treats that aren’t as rich and dry and… painful.
Happy Mid autumn Festival to you!
You mean 85°C, no? It’s a Taiwanese bakery/coffee house chain. Taiwanese mooncakes are the best.
I have never tried the 85° mooncakes! I will try next year.
I had to ask C. what it was when I saw people on the street holding signs that said Mooncake coupons recycling! It is amazing what they can think of, haha.
Excellent post and have fun in Spain! Mooncakes are the worst. I always give them away as fast as I can – usually to the security guards in my building. They always seem happy but I don’t understand why since mooncakes are horrible. I guess it is the thought that counts – unless it is those haagan dazs mooncakes…damn those look good.
Haha, yes, I guess the security guards liked that you thought of them ;) You must be known as the nice laowai!
I am not really a fan of traditional mooncakes, but ice cream mooncakes sound amazing!
Hope you are having a great time in Spain!
Thanks Constance! I still have a few days left :)
I also don’t like the normal ones, too dry and heavy! This year I got Mango and Matcha ones, they were a nice change. But icecream ones? I would definitely queue for them too!
I have never tried mango or matcha ones! They sound interesting, haha.
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