"mooncakes" news and stories

The first time I ate a mooncake I was just out of college. I happened upon the dense sweet treat at a Chinese bakery. I opted for the mixed nut variety, since egg yolk didn't strike me as very appealing. More on that later. First, let's clear one thing up for those who've never heard of or eaten a mooncake: They are not made on the moon. These treats stamped with Chinese characters are eaten in China, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival which took place this past Sunday.

I grabbed the assortment shown here yesterday; so don't let the fact that this harvest festival has ended stand between you and some tasty yuèb?ng, as they're known in Chinese. Most Chinese bakeries make mooncakes year-round.

In the center is a very traditional Chinese variety filled with red bean paste and the large guy off to the right is a mixed nut mooncake. The real find, though was the quartet of Golden Starlight brand Malaysian mooncakes. When I think of Malaysian cuisine, I usually forget about the Chinese influence, largely because my favorite dishes, like beef rendang, tend to be curry-based.

A few weeks ago a friend and I were at a Vietnamese market in the Bronx of all places when we came across the delicacy pictured here. Since the damn thing was so cute she purchased two for herself. I only bought one, largely because cuteness doesn't score quite as many points with me. Looking around the store, I noticed several moon cakes and it soon dawned on me that this little piggy is meant to celebrate the Vietnamese version of the Chinese Moon Festival, which took place yesterday.

The other day I decided to eat the little guy. Like many moon cakes, he was packed with a sweet filling, in this case lotus seed paste. For some reason I started with the head. I soon made short work of the dense cake, which served as breakfast along with a cup of green tea.

Since you can't read the little tag, here's the gist of it. The English name of this confection is "The gold pig with riches and honor." The Vietnamese text reads, "Bánh Heo Phú Qui Bánh Con Heo Trung Thu." My curiosity about exotic foods runs pretty much neck and neck with my obsession with foreignlanguages. Thanks to the wonders of VDict, I was able to translate the Vietnamese. VDict stumbled over the word "qui," but here's its translation "pig pie endow mid-autumn pig pie qui." All of which seems to make sense since Trung Thu is the Vietnamese name for the Moon Festival.
Now that I ate the little guy, I'm waiting for the riches and honor to start rolling in. Still, I can't help think that I should have eaten it by the light of last night's full moon to seal the deal.