Handwritten reports on different types of mooncakes for the Mid-Autumn Festival are here!

Mooncakes

On the 15th day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, the Mid-Autumn Festival has arrived. During the Mid-Autumn Festival, mooncakes are an essential food. The round mooncakes symbolize reunion and convey people’s best wishes. So, when did mooncakes appear?

As a kind of pasta, pancakes appeared very early in our country, and were recorded in classics during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. During the Eastern Han Dynasty, there were many types of cakes, and relatively large round cakes appeared. Because flax (later called sesame) was added to them, they were called Hu cakes. Emperor Ling of the Han Dynasty liked eating Hu cakes very much, which made Hu cakes very popular in Luoyang, the capital. This kind of Hu cake can be regarded as the predecessor of moon cake.

In the early years of the Tang Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival was officially formed, and the emergence of mooncakes was a matter of course. Because the festival can’t just be about admiring the moon, there must be tributes to the moon and food, and the round cakes are the best choice. Master Ennin, a Japanese monk, arrived in China as an envoy to the Tang Dynasty during the reign of Emperor Wenzong of the Tang Dynasty and lived in China for ten years. In his "Notes on a Pilgrimage to the Tang Dynasty to Seek Dharma", there is this record: "On the 15th, the temple owner set up buns and cakes Food, etc., for the festival on August 15th.” Although the cakes here are not explicitly said to be round cakes, they are definitely seasonal tributes and foods during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In folklore, people in the Tang Dynasty had already begun to eat moon cakes. It is said that during the reign of Emperor Gaozu of the Tang Dynasty, General Li Jing returned from the war. On August 15th, a Turpan businessman offered Hu cakes to celebrate his victory. The cake invites the toad." Then he distributed the cake to the ministers to share. From then on, people had the custom of eating moon cakes during festivals. There is also a legend that one year on August 15th, Tang Xuanzong and Yang Guifei ate Hu cakes and admired the moon together. Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty thought the name Hu Cake was unpleasant, so Concubine Yang looked at the big and round moon and had an idea and said, "Then let's call it moon cake." From then on, Hu Cake was called "moon cake". The third legend, found in "Luozhong Insights", says that Emperor Xizong of the Tang Dynasty ate mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival and found them delicious. When he heard that the new scholars were holding a banquet in Qujiang, he ordered the imperial dining room to wrap mooncakes in red silk and give them to them.

Although the legend is not historical, it has real shadows. Since the Mid-Autumn Festival has appeared in the Tang Dynasty, people also eat cakes during the festival. Round Hu cakes have long become a common food in the Central Plains. It is natural for Hu cakes to become moon cakes.

Su Dongpo, a famous writer in the Northern Song Dynasty, wrote a poem: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, with crispy and sweet fillings in them." "The cookies are like chewing the moon" means that the cookies are shaped like the moon and taste like biting into the moon; "There are crisps and malt in the middle" means that the cookies are filled with butter and malt sugar and are very delicious. This moon-like cake was eaten by Su Dongpo during the Mid-Autumn Festival, which is also evidence that mooncakes have already appeared, although it has nothing to do with whether mooncakes appear as a noun. By the Ming Dynasty, mooncakes finally appeared in large numbers in classics. The mooncakes at this time are not only round, symbolizing reunion, but they are also only eaten during the Mid-Autumn Festival. They are a must-have tribute for people to worship the moon and a must-have food for gifts to relatives and friends.

According to the laws of nature, there is always a process of gradual growth and development before a phenomenon appears in large numbers. Moon cakes are a seasonal food during the Mid-Autumn Festival. Although the term did not appear until the Southern Song Dynasty and appeared in large numbers in classics during the Ming Dynasty, it can be confirmed through historical records and folklore that real objects appeared in the Tang Dynasty, and the name and reality were already present in the Song Dynasty.