Eating mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival is a long-standing traditional custom in my country.

The wind is clear, the moon is bright, and the fragrance of cinnamon is refreshing. Every family eats moon cakes and admires the moon, celebrating the reunion with a unique flavor.

Moon cakes, as a kind of food shaped like a full moon and filled with delicious fillings, appeared in the Northern Song Dynasty.

The poet and gourmet Su Dongpo once wrote a poem: "Small cakes are like chewing the moon, with crispy and sweet fillings in them."

As a kind of food, called "moon cake", it first appeared in "Old Wulin Stories: Steamed Food" in the Southern Song Dynasty.

At that time, people in Hangzhou had a habit of "giving each other moon cakes to symbolize reunion during the Mid-Autumn Festival."

By the end of the Yuan Dynasty, mooncakes had become a Mid-Autumn Festival delicacy.

Eating ducks The Mulao people in Yunnan, my country, buy pancakes and kill ducks on August 15th to celebrate this traditional festival.

In order to commemorate the family of three sugar sellers who used to sell sugar in the village to mobilize the villagers to kill Fangui guys, Mulao people buy cakes and kill ducks every August 15th to educate future generations not to forget the struggle against aggression.

Eating taro during the Mid-Autumn Festival means to ward off evil spirits and eliminate disasters, and also expresses disbelief in evil spirits.

"Chaozhou Fu Zhi" written by Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty said: "Playing with the moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival, peeling taro and eating it is called peeling ghost skin."

Peeling ghosts and eating them is like Zhong Kui's spirit of exorcising ghosts, which is respectable.

Eating snails As for eating snails in the Mid-Autumn Festival, it is recorded in the "Shunde County Chronicle" during the Xianfeng period of the Qing Dynasty: "Looking at the sun in August, people eat snails with taro." Folks believe that snails in the Mid-Autumn Festival can improve eyesight.

According to analysis, snail meat is rich in nutrients, and the vitamin A it contains is an important substance for the visual pigment of the eyes.

Eating snails can improve eyesight, which makes sense.

But why must we be particularly keen on eating during the Mid-Autumn Festival?

Some people point out that around the Mid-Autumn Festival, it is the time when the snails are empty and there are no small snails in the abdomen, so the meat is particularly plump.

This is the best time to eat snails.

Nowadays, among the people in Guangzhou, many families have the habit of frying snails during the Mid-Autumn Festival.

Eating pumpkins is celebrated throughout the Mid-Autumn Festival in Jiangnan, and every household has the custom of eating old pumpkins and burning glutinous rice in August and a half.

Drinking Osmanthus Wine Every Mid-Autumn Festival night, people look up at the bright moon, smell the fragrance of osmanthus, and think of Wu Gang cutting osmanthus. Drinking a cup of osmanthus honey wine to celebrate the sweetness of the family and get together has become a holiday enjoyment.

Osmanthus is not only for viewing, but also has edible value.

Osmanthus is not only for viewing, but also has edible value.

In Qu Yuan's "Nine Songs", there are poems such as "aiding Ji's fight and drinking cinnamon pulp" and "laying osmanthus and drinking pepper pulp".

It can be seen that the age of drinking osmanthus and making wine in our country is quite long ago.

Eating lotus root boxes during the Mid-Autumn Festival also symbolizes reunion, especially eating "lotus root boxes".

People in Jiangsu and Zhejiang usually slice lotus root into slices, connect the lower ends of each two slices, stuff them with meat, clams, etc., and fry the outside until golden brown. This is also called lotus root cake, which is similar to moon cakes.

There are two main varieties of lotus root on the market today, namely seven-hole lotus root and nine-hole lotus root.

Seven-hole lotus root is mostly cultivated in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. This variety has excellent texture, tender meat, crispy, sweet, and flawless whiteness.

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that lotus root changes from cool to warm in nature after being cooked, which is beneficial to the spleen and stomach. It has the effects of nourishing the stomach, nourishing yin, and replenishing blood.

People with a full moon also have round mooncakes. Tips on legend. Some people believe that eating and giving mooncakes have been related to the Mid-Autumn Festival since ancient times.

Actually, this is not the case.

In the early Tang Dynasty, it turned out that only the first day of the eighth lunar month was a festival, but not the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month.

According to legend, later Emperor Ming of the Tang Dynasty visited the Moon Palace on the night of August 15th, so the people regarded August 15th as the Mid-Autumn Festival.

In the mid-Tang Dynasty, people began to go up to the tower to watch the moon on the night of August 15th, but there were no mooncakes at that time.

Speaking of moon cakes, the earliest appearance was in the Southern Song Dynasty.

However, the mooncakes at that time had nothing to do with the Mid-Autumn Festival. The mooncakes at that time were also very different from modern mooncakes. They only appeared in the food market as steamed food.

Mooncakes were really associated with the Mid-Autumn Festival in the Ming Dynasty.

At that time, a kind of mooncake filled with fruit appeared in Beijing. On the Mid-Autumn Festival, people made mooncakes for themselves and as gifts to friends and relatives to express reunion and congratulations.

At that time, the size and shape of mooncakes were very irregular and varied greatly, and their names were also quite special.