Mooncake Season
When it comes to mooncakes, I’ve been lied to until now. From my childhood Girl Scout international food festival when a leader told us not to touch them to the package left for months in the break room of the tech company where I once worked. No one ever ate the mooncakes. They were completely off my radar until a friend posted to her social media pages a picture of several unopened packages her husband had bought at Costco. “Anybody want these?” No one responded. I implicitly trusted her judgment on all things food. If she and her family were not going to eat these things, that would be the finial on the gravestone of mooncakes for me. Until…
Several months ago I arrived at market to find a group of young men selling mooncakes. “Seriously?” I thought. The best part of being a vendor in a dynamic metropolitan market has been encountering innovative ideas, premium products, and amazing flavors. The farmers market is an incubator for niche producers, bakeries, chefs, chocolatiers, ethnic foods--you name it. As a veteran vendor, I make it a point to support newcomers so I wandered over to check them out.
There were only a few items left on the display plates with most products already sold out. To gain a coveted spot, these producers had already passed the taste tests of market staff. I was willing to give them a try.
“I’ll take a mooncake,” I said pointing to a petite square of dark and light dough baked into an intricate patterned fat cookie.
“It’s filled with black sesame paste”, the young man explained along with the significance of moon cakes. I was stepping into uncharted territory.
Monday mornings are when I wind down my week with numbers, bookkeeping, next week’s plans, and catching up on farm work. It is the busiest day of my week so I like to kick it off with the most decadent and tasty morsel brought home from market. That morning I stared at the mooncake. All my life I had been told not to eat those things, but here I was faced with a beautifully handcrafted item. I bit off the corner. There was a soft, but firm buttery outer crust with black coarse paste filling the center. What did the young man said it was filled with? I rolled it around on my mouth until the flavor and my memory coincided with the answer: sesame seed paste. This mooncake blasted my tastebuds into orbit. Ethereal. Luscious. Each week I scoured the vendor list to see if they had returned and when they did, I scored another one, a different flavor--lotus paste, equally delicious as my first.
“We’ll be back in time for the Mid-Autumn Festival,” said my fellow vendor who had my curiosity with yet another reason to celebrate.
I’ve often joked about being poly-cultural/theistic as I enjoy celebrating everyone’s holidays and traditions. Being a good marketer is knowing your customers which has lead me to engage in all sorts of culinary delights previously unknown.
Tradition means familiar flavors, a taste of the homeland, something grandma always cooked. As our food system becomes more industrialized, finding specialized items is becoming more difficult so many set out for the farmers market to find what they’re looking for. Now I had a new one to add to my list.
Similar festivals occur all through southeast Asia on the full moon in September. Like many other agricultural centric celebrations, the Moon Festival marks the fall harvests by gathering for meals with family, drinking wine, visiting relatives, giving gifts, and of course, eating mooncakes. Other traditions include painting and hanging colorful lanterns, bonfires, and Fire Dragon dances.
If you want to learn more about the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Chinese American Museum in Washington, DC will be holding their Community Day on Saturday, September 10th from 10 AM to 4 PM.
Even though I’m not Chinese, I’ll have my own little Mid-Autumn Festival this year because Bang ‘n You is going to be back at Bethesda Central Farm Market this Sunday with their mooncakes.