If you see red lanterns lit around Chinatown and Argyle Street today, it’s because today is Mid-Autumn Festival for the Chinese and Vietnamese. You too can join in the fun: Just head to a grocer and pick up a box of mooncakes.
Like the construction of many Chinese foods, it has as much to do with symbolism as taste. What you get is a round pastry, with an intricately designed crust, filled with a dense lotus seed or red bean paste filling, and a salted duck egg yolk in the center symbolizing the full moon. With more elaborate mooncakes, you might find four yolks, one in each quadrant, for the four lunar phases. Some bakers even use Iberico ham but that’s beyond my scope of familiarity.
I wouldn’t say mooncakes, upwards of 1,000 calories per serving, are the crave-worthiest of Chinese food traditions. Some find the earthy sweet and rich salty dichotomy delicious. Others, like my non-Chinese wife, find it gross. So it’s certainly an acquired taste for neophytes. Nevertheless, it’s big business: This story from The New York Times notes mooncakes are a $2 billion industry in Asia.
Mostly it has to do with the kind gesture, the notions of unity and harmony. So in essence, it’s the Chinese equivalent of the Christmas fruit cake.
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