Legend says mooncakes once smuggled the signal for a revolt
A folk tale credits Zhu Yuanzhang, founder of the Ming dynasty, with hiding the date of an uprising against the Mongol-led Yuan inside mooncakes. In one version the message was split across four cakes, each cut into quarters, so only the 16 reassembled pieces could be read before being eaten.
Mooncakes belong to the Mid-Autumn Festival, a harvest celebration counted among the four most important Chinese festivals and tied by legend to moon-watching and Chang'e, goddess of the Moon. The festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth lunar month, and the pastries have become so central that many people simply call it the Mooncake Festival. They are cut into small wedges, eaten with tea and given to relatives and business clients, a custom that props up a market for luxury versions.
The best-known type is Cantonese: a round cake about 10 centimetres across, with a crust only 2 to 3 millimetres thick around a dense filling, classically lotus seed paste. A salted duck egg yolk at the centre stands for the full moon, and elaborate cakes hold four yolks for the moon's phases. The top is stamped with characters for longevity or harmony, the bakery's name and the filling, sometimes framed by a rabbit or Chang'e.
Regional styles differ mostly in the crust. Cantonese cakes use a glossy, chewy dough made with sugar syrup and lye water; Suzhou and Taiwanese ones layer oily dough for a flaky, puff-pastry feel; others use a tender shortcrust, and Yunnan bakers mix rice, wheat and buckwheat flours into a crumbly hot-water pastry filled with Xuanwei ham and sugar. The Teochew make a lard-rich version and even a deep-fried lotus pastry. Fillings run from jujube and red bean paste to a mix of five nuts and seeds bound with maltose.
Competition keeps pushing novelty, including snow skin cakes from Hong Kong and versions made of chocolate or ice cream. It also drives showy boxes. Packaging waste in China is estimated to grow by about 10 percent a year, while only around a tenth of recyclable material is recovered, and mooncake boxes still lean on plastic.
Source: Mooncake
