Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! The festival day is actually Sunday this year, according to the Lunar calendar. The festival, also known as the Moon Cake Festival, celebrates the moon and maybe some deity who used to live on it. Always held on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month, this holiday is around 3,000 years old though an official holiday in P.R. of China for only a few years--giving everyone in China the excuse not to work for a day.
The holiday is celebrated by eating moon cakes, floating lanterns, and matchmaking...so it sounds like many other holidays with one big exception: moon cakes. These colorful pastries with wild fillings are found everywhere this week. My boss gave me a couple to take home last Friday and one week later; there are no survivors. The fillings ranged from delicious coconut to ghastly! I bit into one a few days ago and met with the unexpected flavor of the sea--fish! As much as I tried to consume the cake, I gave up halfway through. Which set up a quick trip to a Chinese bakery the next day quite well.
Chinese bakeries are to bakeries as chicken feet are to chicken wings. Similar as they share a word "bakery" but completely different. I'm a bakery guy. The smell of fresh bread is one of the best scents in the world and brings me right back to farming days in upstate New York. This smell does not exist in a Chinese bakery. Because they don't really make bread...they think they make bread, but they are sadly mistaken. Milk breads, steamed breads, coconut milk breads, and more kinds than I've ever seen...but not bread bread, or should I say to clarify: Western bread. I should add though, that they also don't carry Tibetan bread which is quite hearty. So why was I in this bakery? Curiosity and a doughnut shape.
Nothing could prepare me for my tour around the shop resulting in my discovery of cuttlefish bread. I think there was some vegetable involved as well. First of all, cuttlefish? We're in Chengdu--miles away from the ocean and besides that, who thinks of these pastry ideas? Sometimes I think it's someone in China's job to just see Western things and try as hard as possible to do the exact opposite. I think a french baguette and cuttlefish are a prime example of this theory, so now I submit this to you as fact.
I must say I left the bakery with my doughnuts and a large smile on my face. This country is often too much for me, but that night it was just amusing. Perhaps I'll get the courage to try the cuttlefish bread. But as of yet...I think not. Something about that fishy moon cake taste still lingering in my mind.
All in all, the moon cake festival is becoming a favorite of mine as many of the pastries I have bitten into have delicious fillings. That and the fact that this festival is back-to-back with Oct 1, Chinese National Day which combined gives us 8 days off work.
Moon cakes are sure to be available at your local China town/neighborhood this week. Though not sure about their bakery presence, as funnily enough, the Chinese bakery wasn't selling moon cakes...puzzling. Enjoy the full moon this Saturday night and don't forget to release your floating lantern and try to find your friends their perfect match!
The holiday is celebrated by eating moon cakes, floating lanterns, and matchmaking...so it sounds like many other holidays with one big exception: moon cakes. These colorful pastries with wild fillings are found everywhere this week. My boss gave me a couple to take home last Friday and one week later; there are no survivors. The fillings ranged from delicious coconut to ghastly! I bit into one a few days ago and met with the unexpected flavor of the sea--fish! As much as I tried to consume the cake, I gave up halfway through. Which set up a quick trip to a Chinese bakery the next day quite well.
Chinese bakeries are to bakeries as chicken feet are to chicken wings. Similar as they share a word "bakery" but completely different. I'm a bakery guy. The smell of fresh bread is one of the best scents in the world and brings me right back to farming days in upstate New York. This smell does not exist in a Chinese bakery. Because they don't really make bread...they think they make bread, but they are sadly mistaken. Milk breads, steamed breads, coconut milk breads, and more kinds than I've ever seen...but not bread bread, or should I say to clarify: Western bread. I should add though, that they also don't carry Tibetan bread which is quite hearty. So why was I in this bakery? Curiosity and a doughnut shape.
Nothing could prepare me for my tour around the shop resulting in my discovery of cuttlefish bread. I think there was some vegetable involved as well. First of all, cuttlefish? We're in Chengdu--miles away from the ocean and besides that, who thinks of these pastry ideas? Sometimes I think it's someone in China's job to just see Western things and try as hard as possible to do the exact opposite. I think a french baguette and cuttlefish are a prime example of this theory, so now I submit this to you as fact.
I must say I left the bakery with my doughnuts and a large smile on my face. This country is often too much for me, but that night it was just amusing. Perhaps I'll get the courage to try the cuttlefish bread. But as of yet...I think not. Something about that fishy moon cake taste still lingering in my mind.
All in all, the moon cake festival is becoming a favorite of mine as many of the pastries I have bitten into have delicious fillings. That and the fact that this festival is back-to-back with Oct 1, Chinese National Day which combined gives us 8 days off work.
Moon cakes are sure to be available at your local China town/neighborhood this week. Though not sure about their bakery presence, as funnily enough, the Chinese bakery wasn't selling moon cakes...puzzling. Enjoy the full moon this Saturday night and don't forget to release your floating lantern and try to find your friends their perfect match!
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