I remember eating my first mooncakes as a child eons ago. Our neighbour in Pulau Pinang was a Chinese Muslim convert and she used to ply us with the mooncakes then. I think they were 'simpler' and more 'basic' before, but now mooncakes have become an (commercial) art - some so beautiful not only in the cakes themselves but the wrapping and the boxes they come in. Just check these out at the special stalls that have sprouted around in the malls and shopping centres since the beginning of August. Even the hotels and restaurants are cashing in on this celebration, their bakery producing nicely packaged mooncakes.
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| Pretty mooncakes (Photo taken from brochure of Eastin Hotel 2011) |
This year I had some mooncakes to savour with Chinese tea, of course. For the uninitiated, the ingredients that make these traditional cakes are the pastry (oil, flour, eggs, water, salt) and the filling (usually lotus seeds, maltose syrup/sugar, mung/red beans plus permitted flavouring and colouring). Although the cakes I had were very sweet, they were 'delish'! But I have yet to try the one with the salted egg (whole yolk - to represent the moon) in the filling. Or the very contemporary ones - chocolate and jelly mooncakes.
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| The mooncake I ate (CNB 2011) |
As for the tanglung (lanterns), when we were living in Alor Star, my father used to buy them for us when we were children. Only, we were not supposed to light them up, because nincompoops among us were bound to set the house on fire. So we had to be content with just parading around the house and the neighbourhood with these colourful 'accordian' and 'animal' lanterns - mine usually a red rabbit. Coincidentally, in the Chinese zodiac, I am a rabbit! Care for some carrot mooncake?
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| A Rabbit lantern reminiscent of my childhood (Picture from an ad in a local newspaper 2011) |
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