It's Mooncake Time Again

It's a delicious and eclectic snack for a variety of taste buds. Mid-autumn festival is a two weeks away, so its time you learn to love the mooncake.

Mooncakes (月饼, yue bing) are typically associated with the mid-Autumn festival (this year, September 22-24) and were an integral part of the sacrifice the emperor was required to make to the Moon God during that time. Legend also has it that the treats were used to help the Han people overthrow Mongol rule. The revolutionaries distributed secret messages through the moon cakes and directed people to revolt in unison on a designated day. Thus, moon cakes became an even more deeply embedded tradition within Chinese culture.

At the end of August and through September, you can find mooncakes everywhere. If you work for a Chinese company, expect to get a tin of cakes as a gift before mid-Autumn festival. Small snack shops and bakeries also produce tons of Suzhou-style mooncakes around Mid-autumn festival, but you can easily get your moon cake groove on at your local convenience store. They all seem to have the same primary local supplier (XingHuaLou) and sometimes you’re lucky to get one so fresh it’s still warm. The outer skin is soft and tender; the inner filling is dense and sweet. The lotus paste (shown here) is a traditional favorite, though every now and then I enjoy red bean versions as well. Another benefit of buying your moon cakes outside of a specialty shop? They sell smaller, individually-wrapped versions instead of the traditional nearly-a-foot-in-diameter kind. I like to think this gives you more crust with every bite and thus more satisfaction. Plus, for ¥0.5 to ¥2 per cake it makes more economic sense if you just want to test flavors.

If you’re in the mood for something that’s not blueberry flavored potato chips or tea eggs, give these a shot. They’re traditional Chinese, but “safe” enough for foreign taste buds. But here’s a more intense guide to Mooncakes for you food and culture nerds out there:

CANTONESE VS. SUZHOU STYLE

Mooncakes come in a wide variety of styles; there is even a French version that’s made with cheese. Traditionally however, it can all be narrowed down to two basic styles:

Canton-Style （粤式 / 广式, yuèshì / guǎngshì）- These are the one’s usually given as gifts in fancy tins and are commonly sold individually at the convenient stores. The chewy crust is usually golden brown. These range from delicate and expensive to mass produced and cheap. The intricate designs or Chinese writings are molded into the top of the cake. (These are the ones most commonly found in the West and are what most of us associate with mooncakes).

Suzhou-style （苏式, sūshì）- These have a flaky crust that you might see freshly made on the street. The crust has a more bready taste, almost like a croissant but less buttery. On the street, these are inexpensive but some higher-quality cakes can demand the same price as their Cantonese counterparts. These either have no design on the top surface or have an edible (usually red) stamp on the top. The Suzhou-style has spawned at least a dozen regional offshoots.

TRADITIONAL FILLINGS***

Sweet, salty, savory, spicy, creamy…don’t let the word “cake” fool you. Chinese mooncakes are not usually a dessert. In fact, many have a salted duck egg in the middle, regardless of the filling. Here is a list of the most common fillings in English and Chinese so you can make an informed decision about what you want to try (just in case you have no stomach for salted duck egg).

Lotus-Seed Paste (蓮蓉, lían róng) – most popular filling. Most common is a lotus-seed filling with a duck egg yolk core, but you can find it without the egg as well.

Sweet bean Paste (豆沙, dòu shā) – Can come in the form of red beans, sweet black beans or mung beans. Like the name suggests, its sweet and beany, an exotic taste/texture most laowai acquire after a year of living in China.

Date Paste aka JuJuBe (棗泥, zǎo ní) – sweet and sour

“Five Nuts”( 五仁, wǔ rén) – includes some combination of seeds and nuts (almonds, watermelon, pumpkin, peanuts, sesame, walnuts) and some sugar.

“Salt and Pepper” (椒鹽, jiāoyán) – its really black sesame seeds but given its name because of the colors inside.

**CHINESE CORNER: “I don’t want the salted duck egg yolk!” – “我不要咸蛋黄。”wǒ bú yào xián dàn huáng.**

MODERN STYLES

You can find gelatin crusts with fruit fillings, Cantonese style cakes with coconut and chocolate and Häagen-Dazs makes a variety of icecream mooncake. With all the modern variations of the mooncake, the only unifying concept is its cylindrical shape with some kind of filling, but I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with the Moon Pie.

WHERE TO GET MOONCAKES

As mid-autumn becomes winter, the mooncakes slowly disappear. If you’re (un)lucky enough to develop an addiction to the delectable treat, I suggest going to XingHuaLou, a Shanghainese chain known among Chinese as having the best mooncakes and Chinese snacks.

343 Fuzhou Road, HuangPi District (黄浦区福州路343号)
558 Sichuan Road, HuangPi District (黄浦区四川中路558号)
112 YuyaoRoad, Ying’an District (静安区余姚路112号)

***with a little help from our friends at Wikipedia

Shau-Ru is the manager of Dining Secretary's English department and one of the writers of the Shanghai food blog, Dumplings to Donuts. For more food-related adventures, check out www.diningsecretary.com/blog.