Yesterday was Mid-Autumn Festival, we also call it Mooncake Festival or Lantern Festival. We did not have time to go out to celebrate with lanterns hence NICI monkey brought home a box of mooncake as solace.
NICI Monkey left to get his friend pirate bear to join eating the mooncakes and meanwhile..four cheeky NICI plush sneaks up to the mooncake
5 minutes later...
NICI Monkey came back with Pirate Bear joyfully unaware of what has happened..
The 4 cheeky NICI plush had already eaten one of the mooncakes and replaced it with pirate gecko!
Okay now, how can Mooncake Festival be without mooncakes?
This is our favorite type of mooncake that we buy every year. The salted egg yolk mooncake.
Next we wanna introduce something different. This is not a mooncake, this is Teochew biscuit (潮州朥饼), the pickled mustard vegetable flavor.
Although not a mooncake, the Teochew biscuit is a part of the mooncake festival too.
You don't really see pickled mustard vegetable inside but the taste is there and this is delicious!
Mooncake Festival is not just about mooncakes. Now let's take you way back and introduce you the traditional Mid-Autumn/Mooncake Festival
In front of Jolly Elsa, this might look like a minotaur or a devil's horn or bull's horn.
In Chinese this is called 菱角, in English is Water Caltrop. Don't be fooled by its appearance, water caltrop is a traditional food for Mid-Autumn/Mooncake Festival. Water caltrop is cultivated in China and harvested during the fall (autumn).
菱角 or Water Caltrop taste like water chestnut when boiled. The black shell is very hard, you have to crack it open like you crack a crab. Jolly Elsa finds it very amusing.
Next, is a little Yam in front of Jolly Elsa. Yam is another traditional food for Mooncake Festival.
Sweet pomelo is the grapefruit of the Chinese and another traditional food that we eat for Mooncake Festival. There you go, water caltrops plus yam plus sweet pomelo! These traditional food are used as offerings to the Moon Goddess during mooncake festival.
Mooncake Festival is not just about mooncakes. Now let's take you way back and introduce you the traditional Mid-Autumn/Mooncake Festival
I love pictures, seeing them makes me hungry hahaha.
ReplyDeleteElsa sure seems to enjoy all these foods. I have never heard of mooncake before. Do you make it yourself as well?
ReplyDeleteYUM, those moon cakes look delicious!!!
ReplyDelete@Bea: Gracias! :))
ReplyDelete@potamotrygorgeous: Good question! We don't make mooncakes ourselves, it is only eaten once a year in august-september. Too much of a hassle. Don't think anyone makes it themselves. Mooncake is quite greasy, so we'd only eat a few small pieces and it'll be enough :))
ReplyDelete@Jerry and Ben: Yes they are! Not all of them are delicious but we only buy our favorite ones! ^^
ReplyDeletei love the "joke"!!! HAHAHA! the "cheekies" are so cute! ^^
ReplyDelete@Minghui: I like how you call them cheekies! hahaha :D
ReplyDeleteOh what a lovely box for the moon cakes. The photo with gecko replacing the eaten one is sooo funny and we also love Elsa with the big pomelo. Thanks for that nice story and for sharing those special celebrations with us :-) Greetings
ReplyDelete@Leona Löwenherz: You're welcome Leona. Warmest greetings from our flock! :-)
ReplyDelete