Qiu Junlin
The Mid-Autumn Festival is approaching, and the moon cake season is another year.
"August and fifteen months are round, and Mid-Autumn Festival moon cakes are fragrant and sweet." A proverb tells people the custom of admiring the moon and eating moon cakes on the night of Mid-Autumn Festival.
However, what many people don't know is that the original moon cakes were not called "moon cakes", and they were not even related to the Mid-Autumn Festival.
All this starts with the origin and evolution of moon cakes.
The term "moon cake" was first seen in "Menglianglu"
Regarding the origin of moon cakes, there is a saying that the moon cakes were originally called "Hu Bing", which was introduced into the Central Plains from the Western Regions.
During the Han Dynasty, Zhang Qian brought back a round cake made with walnut kernels by the locals when he was out of the country.
Later, it is said that Emperor Xuanzong of Tang and Concubine Yang watched the moon together and ate sesame cakes while watching the moon.
Tang Xuanzong said: "The name Hu Bing is not good." Concubine Yang looked at the big and round moon and said in passing: "This cake is very similar to the moon in the sky. How about moon cake?" Tang Xuanzong said, "Okay." !" Since then, Hu Bing has been called moon cake.
The legend is beautiful, but it may not be true.
During the Northern Song Dynasty, a popular snack called "small cakes" and "yue tuan" was popular among folks, which is considered to be the embryonic form of modern moon cakes.
This kind of cake is made of wheat flour, caramel, lard and other materials, and it tastes crisp and sweet.
The fillings include diced lard, pine nuts, nuts, etc., which are similar to the current Soviet-style mooncakes and Beijing-style mooncakes.
At the time, this kind of cake was an everyday dessert.
Su Shi once wrote in his poem "Leaving the Others and Lian Shou": "Small biscuits are like chewing the moon, and there are crisps and sweets in them." But the "moon" here has nothing to do with the Mid-Autumn Festival. It just means that this kind of pie is shaped like a full moon. It cannot be inferred that it is the moon cake eaten on the 15th Mid-Autumn Festival.
The "Tokyo Dream Hualu" between the two Song dynasties recorded various "projects" of the Song Dynasty Mid-Autumn Festival in detail. Among them, in terms of eating, crabs and seasonal fruits that were just on the market were mentioned.
In addition, Zheng Wangzhi's "Shanfu Lu" during the Song Dynasty also mentioned that the seasonal food on the Mid-Autumn Festival is "wanyue geng", which is a soup made with longan meat, rock sugar, lotus seeds, and lotus root flour.
However, in many records, there is no "moon cake".
The term "moon cake" officially appeared in "Meng Liang Lu" written by Wu Zimu of the Southern Song Dynasty. However, this kind of moon cake, like hibiscus cakes, chrysanthemum cakes, crab meat buns and many other famous snacks, is just a market snack, and " It is available at four o'clock, whatever you want to call, don't miss your customers."
It can be seen that the moon cakes at that time were not associated with a particular festival.
The contemporary Zhou Mi mentioned in "Wulin Old Things" that there were more than fifty kinds of steamed food in Lin'an, the capital of the Southern Song Dynasty, such as spring cocoons, lotus leaf cakes, moon cakes, big buns, mutton buns, etc. "Moon cakes" were just one of many steamed foods. kind.
Combining with Mid-Autumn Festival symbolizes reunion
The relationship between moon cakes and "Mid-Autumn Festival" roughly began in the Yuan and Ming dynasties.
Legend has it that during the uprising of Zhu Yuanzhang, the paper strips containing the "August 15th Night Uprising" were hidden in moon cakes as a tool for contacting the insurgents. Later, when the Ming Dynasty was established, Zhu Yuanzhang used "moon cakes" as Mid-Autumn Festival cakes as a gift to the ministers. .
Since then, the custom of eating moon cakes on the Mid-Autumn Festival has spread.
Although this is just a legend, the combination of moon cakes and the Mid-Autumn Festival was not groundless in the Yuan and Ming Dynasties.
The Ming Dynasty eunuch Liu Ruoyu wrote in "Zhu Zhong Zhi": "From the first day, there have been moon cake sellers, and on the 15th, every family offers moon cakes, melons and fruits... If there are leftover moon cakes, they will be harvested in the dry In cool places, they are used at the end of the year, and they are called reunion cakes.” It can be seen that after the Mid-Autumn Festival, people in the Ming Dynasty had the custom of sitting around and eating moon cakes and moon fruits. Gradually penetrate into the hearts of the people.
In addition, Tian Rucheng's "West Lake Tour Zhiyu" in the Ming Dynasty records: "August 15 is called Mid-Autumn Festival, and the folks use moon cakes as a legacy to take the meaning of reunion." At that time, moon cakes not only represented "reunion", but also The custom of giving each other moon cakes has become a common practice.
In the Qing Dynasty, a man named Pan Rongbi entered the imperial palace during the Yongzheng period. After retiring, he stayed at home. Based on his years of experience in the imperial palace, he recorded monthly customs affairs related to the seasons and festivals of the capital at that time. Compilation In a book titled "Emperor Jing Sui Ji Sheng", the article also mentioned in the Mid-Autumn Festival: "Mid-Autumn Festival, the fifteenth, the moon is offered, besides offering incense and lanterns, the reunion moon cakes are also." "" and "Reunion" can no longer be separated.
Oversized mooncakes with a diameter of two feet appeared
There were many kinds of moon cakes in ancient times, one after another.
There is a record in the "Miscellaneous Notes of Wan Shu" written by Shen Bang of the Ming Dynasty: "August Moon Cakes: Shishu Furniture is a legacy of moon-made noodle cakes, and they are of various sizes. They are called moon cakes. The market even uses fruits as fillings, and they have different names. One cake is worth hundreds of dollars.” It can be seen that the moon cakes at that time not only had different sizes, but also had different shapes. There was even a luxurious version of moon cakes worth hundreds of dollars a piece.
Not only that, a super-large moon cake with a diameter of two feet appeared in the Ming Dynasty.
At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Liu Tong and Yu Yizheng recorded in their "Scenery of the Imperial Capital": "Moon cakes and moonfruits are reported by the relatives, and those with two feet in diameter." .
In addition, the "Wanli Jiaxing Mansion" also mentioned: "August Wang uses Baiguo as the name of the mooncake, and Baiguo and sugar as the name of the mooncake, to enjoy the moon and reach the dawn." This shows that there were already fruit-filled mooncakes at that time. .
In the Qing Dynasty, the making skills of moon cakes continued to improve.
Yuan Mei, a well-known foodie, recorded a kind of "Liu Fangbo Mooncake" in his "Suiyuan Food List".
The method of this kind of moon cake is: "Use Shandong flying noodles, make crispy skin, use pine nuts, walnuts, melon seeds as fine powder, and add rock sugar and lard as fillings. Soft and greasy, very unusual.” This kind of meringue moon cake with nuts as filling is similar to the current five-core moon cake.
In Yuan Mei's eyes, "Liu Fangbo Mooncake" tastes very good, and it is also the benchmark among mooncakes of that era.
In addition, he also mentioned a kind of "lace moon cake", Yuan Mei commented that this kind of moon cake "is not under Shandong Liu Fangbo."
This kind of moon cake is filled with jujube meat, and then slowly made into delicate contours and patterns. The delicate fragrance of the dough and the sweet fragrance of jujube mud are perfectly blended after being roasted.
This was a moon cake made by a large family named Ming at that time. Yuan Mei could not resist the deliciousness of the moon cake, so he used a sedan chair to pick up the female chef of the Ming family to make moon cakes in his garden.
During the Jiaqing period of the Qing Dynasty, Yang Guangfu’s Songnan Yuefu said: “Songnan is good, the best of the time is Qiuxiang, mooncakes are filled with peach mince, ice cream is sweetened with cane icing, and Xingu is gradually appearing.” While tasting peach mince mooncakes, Feeling the joy of a good grain harvest, how comfortable and satisfying it should be.
Cantonese-style mooncakes became famous in the late Qing Dynasty
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, there were many types of moon cakes, and moon cakes from different regions also had different flavors and tastes. The types of traditional moon cakes such as Cantonese, Soviet, Beijing, and Chaozhou were dizzying.
From the end of the Qing Dynasty to the beginning of the Republic of China, Nanjing historian Chen Zuolin wrote a book "Jinling Products and Local Records", which was originally a historical chronicle describing the history and culture of Nanjing in detail, but it mentioned that "Mid-Autumn Mooncakes are made by Cantonese." .
It seems that Cantonese-style mooncakes have been well-known as early as the late Qing Dynasty!
Cantonese-style mooncakes are of various quality. The main features are heavy oil, thin skin and many fillings. Traditional Cantonese-style mooncakes can be divided into nut type, meat and poultry type, coconut paste type, and paste type according to their different fillings.
Among them, the most famous one is the lotus seed paste moon cake.
However, the lotus seed paste mooncake appeared very late, and it was born at the end of the 19th century.
At that time, there was a cake and pastry restaurant in the west of Guangzhou. They used lotus seeds to boil lotus seed paste as fillings for shortcakes. The fragrance was delicious and popular with customers.
During the reign of Guangxu, this cake and pastry restaurant was renamed "Lianxianglou", and the cakes filled with lotus seed paste have been shaped into the current moon cakes.
In the second year of Xuantong, Hanlin bachelor Chen Taiji praised the restaurant after tasting the mooncakes, but felt that the word "Lianxiang" was inelegant, so he suggested to change it to "Lianxiang" and hand-written the sign of "Lianxianglou", which is still used today.
According to "Yangcheng Evening News"