Every traditional Chinese Food would relate to festival days which also come with Chinese myth stories. As the moon cake was related to the Mid-Autumn Festival, which was also in the Chinese calendar, the 15th of August. As I had mentioned before, every festival comes from a Chinese myth story, and there are so many different versions, but the very well known one for Mid-Autumn Festival Myth begins with nine suns in the sky, the soil was cracking, plants and animals were dead, people were having a hard time to survive, and there was no rain for the whole year. There was one gentlemen call Ho Yi, he was a strong man, he used his archery shoot eight of the suns, and there was only one left. After that, plants growing again, animals come back, and the citizens recommended Ho Yi to be their King to rule the country. And Gods in the heaven very appreciated what Ho Yi had done for the Human; they gave Ho Yi an immortal medicine for reward. Ho Yi got a beautiful wife, Chang E, she was curious about Ho Yi’s immortal medicine. One day, she went into Ho Yi’s room and found the medicine, Ho Yi saw it, and yell at her, Chang E got scare, she did not know what to do, and she swallow the medicine. Ho Yi was so mad, and he wanted to kill her, Ho Yi was shooting Chang E with his arrows, all the sudden, Chang E flew to the heaven, and one of the God save Chang E’s life. She could not go back to where she used to lived, because Ho Yi is going to kill her, but the God still need to punish her for stealing the medicine, since she is half human, half god, they send her to the moon and never come out. Nowadays, people would buy moon cake to remember the story between Ho Yi and Chang E. The moon cake looks like a moon, some of them are round it, and some of them are squares, they have egg yolk in the moon cake. Even the color and the egg yolk shape looks like the moon, that’s why we call it moon cake.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWow that moon cake looks good. Ok, with that said it is really cool that the Chinese have legends that go with their food. It makes eating them that much better. I think i am going to go out tonight and find me some moon cake to eat becase it looks and, from what I read, sounds delicous. Thank you for writing about this because I really am going to go out and try this food.
ReplyDelete~Derrick Trent~
I just realized how literally every Chinese food came from a legend or actual story. I remember learning about this story when I was in kindergarten in Taiwan. I believe it gives insights on the Chinese culture as a whole, and we get to learn about the culture and the significance of the food as well. Children will find it a lot more interesting when things are incorporated into a story. They are more willing to listen and will implant it into memory.
ReplyDeleteMy dad loves moon cakes, and he always purchase a huge box and sadly because no one can finish it it ends up in the trash can after being infested with molds. Personally I just like to have a little piece of the moon cake once a year, because the cake is really, really sweet and I often freak out about getting diabetes. And I remember my mom saying that the moon cakes are made with lots and lots of grease and oil-- use to be pork grease, just so the cake can have more of a mushy, melt in your mouth quality. But I do believe they changed to use vegetable oils now.
-- Maggie Tsou
It is very interesting as we realize so many of our food is tied to some kinds of ancient stories and myth. I also think that it is a very successful way to carry on tradition from one generation to another. Although some of the true purpose of the myths get lost, the culture of having certain food in certain way is still remaining in many part of our society. These stories and myth become common among people and when established for years, some even become our holidays.
ReplyDeleteI was watching food network the other day and saw Halloween legends from many different places. They presented the story behind of trick or treating. the origin of trick or treating was in Paganism. When ancient Pagans had a tradition to pray for the dead spirits around neighbors on their new year eve which was Oct. 30 at the time, each house had this special cookies which they gave out to every visitors who came to pray. This is how the first tradition of candy giving started.
Of course there is no such thing as praying involved in our Halloween today, but it is a good example of how one tradition and myth is carried on changing its form in a way that fits to the present society.
People have different opinions in how these events are practiced today. In this endless discussion, Some argue that we no longer appreciate the true purpose of them or some take advantage of them for selling products and so on. However, at the end, lots of people love it because it is tied to one thing we commonly love; food, it's fun and tasty!