Moon cakes, also known as Hu cakes, palace cakes, cookies, moon cakes, reunion cakes, etc. It is an offering to worship the moon god in ancient Mid-Autumn Festival. Since it was handed down, the memorandum has formed the custom of eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival.
Moon cakes have a long history in China. According to historical records, as early as the Yin and Zhou Dynasties, there was a kind of "Taishi cake" in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to commemorate Taishi Wenzhong, who was the "ancestor" of China moon cakes. During Zhang Qian's voyage to the West in Han Dynasty, sesame seeds and walnut kernels were introduced, which added auxiliary materials for making moon cakes. At this time, a round cake filled with walnuts appeared, which was called "Hu cake".
In the Tang Dynasty, people had bakers engaged in production, and pastry shops began to appear in Chang 'an, the capital. It is said that on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival one year, Emperor Taizong and Yang Guifei looked at the bright moon, and their emotions surged, so they casually came up with "moon cakes". Since then, the name "moon cake" has gradually spread among the people.
The royal family in the Northern Song Dynasty likes to eat a kind of "palace cake" in the Mid-Autumn Festival, commonly known as "small cake" and "moon group". Su Dongpo has a poem: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, crisp and pleasing." The screenwriter of the Song Dynasty was thorough. The name "moon cake" was first mentioned in Old Wulin, which described what Lin 'an, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, saw. In the Ming Dynasty, eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival gradually spread among the people. At that time, ingenious bakers printed anti-the Goddess Chang'e flying to the moon fairy tales on moon cakes as instrumental art drawings, making moon cakes a necessary food for Mid-Autumn Festival.
Eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival is said to have started in the Yuan Dynasty. At that time, Zhu Yuanzhang led the Han people to resist the tyranny of the Yuan Dynasty, agreed on the August 15th uprising, and put a note in the moon cake to convey the news. The custom of eating moon cakes on Mid-Autumn Festival spread among the people. The English spelling is: moon cake.
Later, Zhu Yuanzhang finally overthrew the Yuan Dynasty and became the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Although the Qing people later entered China, people still celebrated this festival, which symbolized the overthrow of alien rule.
According to legend, in ancient China, the emperor had a system of offering sacrifices to the sun in spring and the moon in autumn. In the folk, every Mid-Autumn Festival in August, there is also a custom about Yue Bai or offering sacrifices to the moon. The famous proverb "The moon is full on August 15th, and the Mid-Autumn moon cake is sweet and fragrant" tells the custom of urban and rural people to eat moon cakes on Mid-Autumn night. At first, moon cakes were used to worship the moon god. Later, people gradually regarded Mid-Autumn Festival as a symbol of family reunion, and mooncakes gradually became holiday gifts.
Moon cakes originally originated from Zhu Jie food in the Tang Dynasty. During the reign of Tang Gaozu, General Li Jing conquered the Huns and returned home in triumph on August 15.
Turpan people who were doing business at that time presented cakes to the emperor of the Tang Dynasty. Gaozu Li Yuan took the gorgeous cake box, took out the round cake, smiled at the bright moon in the sky and said, "We're going to invite toads with Hu cakes." After that, share the cake with the ministers.
The word "moon cake" has been used in the book Liang Lumeng written by Wu in the Southern Song Dynasty, but the description of enjoying the moon and eating moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival is recorded in the West Lake Travel Agency in the Ming Dynasty: "August 15th is called the Mid-Autumn Festival, and people use moon cakes to get together". In the Qing Dynasty, there were more records about moon cakes, and the production became more and more elaborate.
With the development of moon cakes today, there are more varieties and different tastes. Among them, Beijing-style, Soviet-style, Cantonese-style and Chaozhou-style moon cakes are deeply loved by people in the north and south of China.