My partner Ray and I recently hired Shu Chen to do our accounting. This week she gave Marilyn and me a box of moon cakes and told me the story of the Moon Goddess, Chang O, a young woman banned to the moon after taking an immortality pill meant for her husband, the archer that had saved Earth by shooting out the extra suns.
Asians all over the world celebrate Moon Festival, sometimes called the Autumn Festival of the Moon, or the Moon Cake Festival. The date of the festival traditionally falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month. The moon is the brightest of the year during this day and Asians gather with their friends; they feast and drink, and often stay up all night enjoying the moon and reveling in old stories.
I checked out recipes for moon cake on the internet and found several variations, all too difficult for anyone without perseverance as well as great cooking skills. The cake is round and has a filling and a yolk. I know there is symbolism here – the earth, circles, core, egg, life, yolk – but I didn’t find it discussed anywhere on the net.
The festival is the second biggest Asian holiday of the year, just behind the Asian New Year. I must have been Asian in another life because I’ve always had an affinity for this particular time of year.
Shu Chen is from
I ate one yesterday morning with my coffee and found it a little too sweet for my taste – I know, Shu Chen told me to eat it with tea or wine. That’s all right. I’ll have another one today (maybe with tea this time) and another beneath the light of the moon while I’m pecking out a story for Musings. Happy Moon Cake Festival!