The secret of unpalatable five-nut mooncakes

In fact, eating five kinds of nuts alone is not unpalatable. Peach kernels, almonds, and pine nuts are all nuts with high oil content and a natural flavor when chewed. Why does the taste of Wuren mooncake suddenly change?

In ancient times, because of the exquisite materials used, five-nut mooncakes were called "the noble among cakes". Chapter 76 of "Dream of Red Mansions" writes that only Jia Mu, the head of the family, can eat "mooncakes made with melon kernels and pine pulp inside." "Puffed mooncake" is a kind of five-nut mooncake, which is made from pine nuts, walnut kernels, melon seeds and other nuts mixed with rock sugar and lard.

Regardless of whether it tastes good or not, at least it is extremely noble in terms of status.

Many of the various mooncake gift boxes in supermarkets have the words "royal", "health" and "wealth" / Visual China

In "A Dream of Red Mansions", "melon kernel and pine pulp mooncakes" "The raw materials are very close to today's five-nut mooncakes, but why do people think five-nut mooncakes are unpalatable? Have people's tastes changed, or have mooncakes changed? What really makes five-nut mooncakes unpalatable may be the mass production in factories. In order to mass-produce five-nut mooncakes, compromises had to be made on raw materials and processing procedures, making this delicate cake increasingly crude.

Given the complex production process, making delicious five-nut mooncakes must be time-consuming and laborious, but large-scale production requires compromises on costs, both in terms of raw material costs and processing costs.

In terms of broad classification, five-nut mooncakes are divided into Cantonese-style and Soviet-style. Apart from the difference in skin, Cantonese-style five-nut mooncakes are sweeter. Before entering the factory, the traditional Cantonese five-nut mooncake recipe contained eight main raw materials: walnut kernels, peanut kernels, pine nuts, hemp seeds, sesame seeds, olive kernels, peanut kernels, and candied citrus fruits. However, after the Kunming "Guanshengyuan" was established in 1939, olive kernels and peanut kernels were removed from the raw materials, and citrus preserves were replaced with lower-cost winter melon preserves.

According to the new mooncake production standards promulgated in 2015, the “five kernels” of Cantonese-style five-nut mooncakes should be walnut kernels, almonds, olive kernels, melon seeds and sesame seeds. This means that five-nut mooncakes that meet factory standards must use these five raw materials. Compared with the traditional five-nut mooncakes in the past, the mooncakes produced in the factory are constantly simplified in terms of materials. Obviously, the "five-nut mooncakes" eaten by Jia Mu must be much more complicated than the five-nut mooncakes we buy from the supermarket, both in terms of raw materials and production processes.

However, if the ingredients of the five-nut mooncake are fresh, even a simple one is acceptable. For example, the "20th Century Shanghai Literature and History Database" records that the Cantonese-style five-nut mooncakes of a Cantonese restaurant in Shanghai during the Republic of China used the finest fresh ingredients from all over the country - almonds from Beishan, Zhejiang, and olive kernels from Xishan, Guangdong. , shredded coconut comes from Hainan Island, and raw oil comes from Qingdao. They are baked and sold now, and they are very popular with the locals.

But the high cost means higher prices. To meet the demand for mass production, it is simply impossible to transport ingredients by air and bake and sell them now. This is also an exclusive enjoyment for the leisure class. For most people, what they eat is a five-nut mooncake that is not exquisite after reducing the cost. The reason why it is unpalatable is that the inferior processing makes all the ingredients deviate from its original taste.