Mid-Autumn Festival is a traditional festival in China. According to historical records, the word "Mid-Autumn Festival" first appeared in the book Zhou Li. By the Wei and Jin Dynasties, there was a record of "telling Shangshu Town that cattle were confused, and mid-autumn evening and the left and right traveling incognito across the river". It was not until the early years of the Tang Dynasty that the Mid-Autumn Festival became a fixed festival. The Book of Tang Taizong records the Mid-Autumn Festival on August 15th. The prevalence of Mid-Autumn Festival began in the Song Dynasty, and by the Ming and Qing Dynasties, it was as famous as New Year's Day and became one of the major festivals in China. This is also the second largest traditional festival in China after the Spring Festival.
Another explanation for the origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival is that the 15th day of the eighth lunar month happens to be the moment when rice is ripe, and all families worship the land god. The Mid-Autumn Festival may be the legacy of the Autumn Newspaper.
Mid-autumn festival customs:
August 13th to 15th is the Mid-Autumn Festival, commonly known as August Festival. The market is prosperous, and there are mud rabbit stalls everywhere. Moonlight horses are set up in the courtyard during the full moon in May, offering fruits, moon cakes, edamame branches, cockscomb flowers, radishes, lotus roots, watermelons and other products. Only when the moon is offered, men don't worship. As the proverb goes, "Men don't Yue Bai, women don't sacrifice stoves". At the end of the month, family members sit in groups and enjoy the moon by drinking, which is called "Reunion Festival". Also, the moon cakes for the moon festival are divided into pieces according to the number of people, which is called "reunion cake".
According to custom, there were gifts in the Mid-Autumn Festival in the past. "Mid-Autumn Festival, everyone gives gifts to each other ..., rewards slaves with money, and stores put up accounts and posts, so every festival". Gifts are more prosperous now. Before the festival, get two cars, full of moon cakes and fruits, and deliver them door to door. Of course, home and household here refer to business customers. Gifts, naturally, are to contact feelings and settle accounts for business. When you did it two years ago, you should also think about it, which is male prostitute there. I'm afraid this trend is even more prosperous this year.
● Beijing
Traditional moon cakes in old Beijing include naturally invited red, naturally invited white and mooncakes with paste. Mooncake with syrup lifting refers to a method of making the crust of mooncakes. It is said that the popular point of "syrup lifting" is to boil syrup, and a certain proportion of big oil should be added to the crust to make it crisp. When Muslims buy it, they change the big oil into butter. This kind of moon cake is characterized by crispy skin and fragrant stuffing, and "old Beijing" loves it in the Mid-Autumn Festival.
In terms of dishes, crabs are fat in August and autumn, and Mid-Autumn Festival is the time to taste crabs, especially in Beijing.
● Fujian
Fujian people have the custom of eating ducks in the Mid-Autumn Festival, so it is the fattest season for ducks. Fujian people cook duck with areca taro, which is rich in Fujian. It is called roast duck with areca taro, and it tastes very good.
● Shandong
Jimo and other places eat a festive food called "wheat arrow" during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
● Shanxi
Lu 'an people will entertain their son-in-law in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Datong county moon cakes are called reunion cakes, which are as big as two or three feet, and there is a custom of vigil in mid-autumn night.
● Shaanxi
On mid-autumn night in Xixiang County, men went boating and climbed the cliff, and women also arranged a good banquet. No matter rich or poor, people must eat watermelons, which must be cut into lotus shapes.
● Shanghai
Shanghainese Mid-Autumn Festival banquet is accompanied by osmanthus honey wine.
● Jiangsu
Nanjing people love to eat moon cakes in the Mid-Autumn Festival, and they must eat osmanthus duck, a famous Jinling dish. "Sweet-scented osmanthus duck" should be in the market when cinnamon is fragrant, fat but not greasy, and delicious. After drinking, you must eat a small piece of sugar taro and pour it with cinnamon pulp. The beauty goes without saying. "Cinnamon pulp" was named after Qu Yuan's "Songs of Chu, Shaosi Ming" and "Helping the North to close its doors and drink cinnamon pulp". Cinnamomum cassia pulp, a sweet osmanthus, was picked around the Mid-Autumn Festival and pickled with sugar and sour plum. Women in the south of the Yangtze River are handy and turn the chanting in poems into delicacies on the table. Nanjing people enjoy the moon with their families, which is called "celebrating reunion", group sitting and drinking is called "full moon", and traveling in the market is called "walking on the moon".
● Zhejiang
The reason why Hangzhou's water shield bass stew became a dish at the Mid-Autumn Festival family banquet was not only because the water shield bass was delicious at this time, but also because of the historical fact that Hans Zhang abandoned his official position and returned to his hometown in Jin Dynasty with the help of homesickness. This story not only became a beautiful talk for generations, but also made water shield a symbol of homesickness.
Water shield is a Mid-Autumn Festival family dinner and a seasonal dish soup in August. Water shield, also known as horseshoe grass and watercress, is an aquatic perennial leafy grass plant. The roots, stems and leaves of water shield are not only green and fragrant, fresh and delicious, but also nutritious. Water shield can be picked in spring and autumn, but it is better to pick more water shield in autumn.
● Sichuan
In addition to eating moon cakes, Sichuanese also kill ducks, eat sesame cakes, honey cakes and so on during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
In western Sichuan, smoked ducks are a must-have for Mid-Autumn Festival, because at that time, the raw ducks had grown up and were fat and thin. The master selects the ducklings born in the same year, removes all feathers after slaughter, gut them, washes them, removes the wing tips and duck feet, marinates them with salt for one night, scalds them slightly in boiling water until their skins are tight, removes them, puts them in a smoking stove, smokes them with straw until they are brown, takes them out of the oven, marinates them in a pot, and changes the knife to a plate when eating, thus obtaining the smoked duck with golden red color, tender meat and strong smoke smell. The preparation of brine is very important in making smoked duck. Old bittern should be used for bittern, and timely spices, salt and sugar color should be added every time bittern is marinated. When bittern is marinated, the duck should be fully pressed into bittern with heavy objects, and the marinating time is generally about 20 minutes. If the time is too long, the duck meat will be old, which will affect the quality and taste.
● Guangdong
There are many kinds of food in Chaoshan Mid-Autumn Festival, which has a lot to do with the cultural connotation, tidal climate and agricultural production of the Mid-Autumn Festival. It can be mainly divided into three categories: first, cakes, moon cakes from all over Chaoshan, sweet, salty, meaty, assorted and multi-flavored. There are also cakes, soft cakes and cloud cakes, all of which are Mid-Autumn Festival cakes, which are good for hipsters to send relatives. It can be said that it is a custom for hipsters to send moon cakes to relatives. Second, the Mid-Autumn Festival in the tidal zone, when the sky is crisp and the fruit is ripe, pomelo, persimmon, carambola, pineapple, pomegranate, olive and banana are another kind of food for the hipsters in the Mid-Autumn Festival. Third, agricultural taro and pumpkin, which are used by hipsters to make taro paste and melon pulp, are also popular among hipsters. Among them, the Mid-Autumn Moon Cake is an annual traditional food for hipsters. After the Mid-Autumn Festival, there is not a Chaoshan person who doesn't taste the moon cake. Although moon cakes can have various shapes and Chaoshan areas have their own characteristics, they all have the same feature, that is, they are required to be round. Taro, Ciba, etc. are also necessary for hipsters in the Mid-Autumn Festival.
● Guizhou
Guizhou-style moon cakes are different from Cantonese-style moon cakes. They are baked and mixed with 500 grams of flour, pork suet, syrup and water.
Knead into water-oil skin; 250 grams of flour is mixed with lard and rubbed into "dry pastry". After dosing separately, the dry pastry is wrapped in water-oil skin, and the pastry is made into 40 grams of pastry blanks, and then each pastry is pressed into a round cake skin for later use. Bake sesame seeds, melon seeds and walnuts, chop them into fine particles, mix them, add cooked ham powder, jujube, melon paste, cooked flour, rock sugar and salt, and mix well to form a filling.
A proper amount of stuffing is wrapped in the skin blank agent, closed downwards, pressed into an oblate shape, put into an oiled baking pan, and baked in an oven at the temperature of 2 10℃ for the top fire and 0 180℃ for 5-20 minutes until the surface is golden and the inside is mature. Golden color, crisp shell and distinct layers; The stuffing is sweet and salty, sweet and refreshing, and rich in nutrition. The master said that the pastry layer should be thin and even, and a piece of white oil paper should be put on the baking tray when the moon cake blank is put into the baking tray.
● Taiwan Province
There is a strong atmosphere of raising water ducks in Kaohsiung County. Before and after the Mid-Autumn Festival, it is the time when the water duck is the most tender. Hakkas in Meinong area often slaughter the water duck and add vegetables in the Mid-Autumn Festival, which has become a local Mid-Autumn Festival feature. In addition to eating moon cakes, the Mid-Autumn Festival in Yilan area also eats a kind of food called "vegetable cakes". The vegetable cake is made of flour and baked with brown sugar in the middle. In Tainan, there is a custom of eating potato on Mid-Autumn Festival.
In recent years, the Mid-Autumn Festival in Taiwan Province has developed a new activity-barbecue.
In addition, a food company in Taiwan Province launched a brand-new concept of Mid-Autumn Snow Moon Cake according to the different demands of consumption levels and the characteristics of the lingering summer heat during the Mid-Autumn Festival. What is snow moon cake? Snow moon cakes are ice cream moon cakes, which are cool and cool, and have a smooth taste. The stuffing is divided into three flavors-champagne sweetheart, Hawaiian party and Vienna coffee. This moon cake is also fully packaged in Japanese exquisite packaging, and the Baolilong packaging box with heat preservation function ensures that the snow moon cake will not melt in a certain period of time.