China Focus: Homemade mooncake rekindles flavor of traditional festival

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China Focus: Homemade mooncake rekindles flavor of traditional festival

(Xinhua) 20:50, September 17, 2013

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"Six cups of flour, two spoons of sugar syrup, a bag of dried red beans..." Guo Ting and her newly-married husband are trying to make mooncake themselves following a "secret recipe" they found on the Internet.

"We both are very busy at work, so we decide to have some quality time by making mooncakes together for the Mid-Autumn Festival," said Guo, a resident in Xining, capital city of northwest China's Qinghai Province.

The Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Thursday this year, is a traditional Chinese festival for family reunions, during which folks will enjoy the full moon together and eat mooncakes - small round pies with a variety of fillings.

A search of "mooncake molds" on Taobao, one of China's leading online shopping platforms, generates over 10,000 results, with the top-rated seller already having sold more than 9,000 sets over the past 30 days.

All kinds of mooncake recipes are being posted and reposted on websites and the twitter-like Sina Weibo, along with detailed ways of making and baking them.

"In such a quick-fix society, the most meaningful way for me to celebrate the day is to make mooncakes with my child," said Jia Lei, a white-collar employee who just turned 30.

"I have even designed a box for my homemade mooncakes," said Jia, who believes her simple but heartfelt gift will surprise her friends on that particular day.

Lower costs and safer ingredients are also huge factor for smart young Chinese people to make their own moon cakes.

"A piece of ordinary mooncake is sold at 4 to 8 yuan (half to one U.S. dollar) at least, but the total cost of 20 mooncakes I made, including the mold I bought online, is no more than 60 yuan, with each costing less than 3 yuan," Jia calculated.

While younger generations regard homemade mooncake as something creative and a fad, the older generations see the trend as a return to tradition.

Before the economic take-off and the consequent commercial boom of recent decades, Chinese people actually did not have much choice but to make mooncake at home.

"My grandmother used to scrape together sesame, red dates and raisins for months before making them into mooncake," recalled the 62-year-old Cao Fenglian.

"I can still feel the taste and happiness when my dear grandma put a small piece of cake in my mouth," Cao said. "I was so hungry and the cake was so sweet."

The Mid-Autumn Festival, one of few occasions for family reunion, is an important day for Chinese culture, said Liang Yongjia, an folklore expert with the National University of Singapore.

The popularization of homemade mooncake will enhance the recognition of traditional Chinese culture among Chinese people, especially among the younger generations, Liang said.