Posts Tagged → Mid autumn festival
Taste ‘Canadian’ Moon Cakes at Pan Pacific Vancouver’s Moon Festival Sunday Brunch
The 3,000 year-old Festival Mooncake, or Mid-Autumn Festival, is a harvest festival that is one of the most important dates in the Chinese calendar. Vancouver will be celebrating the festival in multiple ways, including the annual Renfrew Ravine Moon Festival (September 25) and the Mid Autumn Moon Celebration at Chinatown’s Dr. Sun Yat Sen Chinese Garden (September 19).
One Moon Festival celebration that infuses a Canadian flavour—literally—into the festivities is the Pan Pacific Vancouver’s Mid-Autumn Festival Sunday Brunch. The gorgeous, waterfront Pan Pacific Hotel hosts one of the most famous Sunday brunches in Vancouver, boasting a lavish buffet that beautifully marries B.C. and Asian favourites, including seafood, dim sum, omelettes, and wok dishes. In honour of the Moon Festival, this Sunday’s Brunch will take that mingling of east-meets-west even further with their unique Canadian Moon Cakes, a delicacy created just for this occasion.
Autumn Moon Cakes are an integral part of the Moon Festival. Traditional Moon Cakes are hearty pastries with a thin, glazed crust that often contain a whole salted duck-egg yolk to represent the full moon. The Pan Pacific Vancouver Pastry Team has kept the usual Moon Cake crust and form but added their own, Canadian twist on the recipe, creating fillings that showcase Canada’s “harvest bounty” with ingredients that include Ice Wine, Agassiz filberts, and dried Okanagan fruits and berries.
Diners will get to sample the Canadian Moon Cakes along with the decadent buffet at this Sunday’s Pan Pacific Sunday Brunch on September 19, 2010.
Source: http://insidevancouver.ca/2010/09/15/taste-canadian-moon-cakes-at-pan-pacific-hotels-moon-festival-sunday-brunch/
Celebration of the Mid-Autumn Festival
Also known as the “Full Moon Festival,” the Mid-Autumn festival falls on the fifteen day of the eighth lunar month. At this time, the moon’s orbit is at its lowest angle to the horizon, making the moon appear brighter and larger than any other time of the year. In the Western tradition, it is also called the Hunter’s Moon or Harvest Moon. According to the lunar calendar, it is also the exact middle of autumn (which begins in the seventh month and ends in the ninth).
To the Chinese, this festival is similar to the American Thanksgiving holiday, celebrating a bountiful harvest. Compared to many Chinese festivals that are inundated with vibrant colors and sounds, the festival mooncake remains more subdued. Traditionally celebrated outdoors under the moonlight, people eat moon cakes and gaze at the moon. In modern times, barbecues with families and friends are also common.
Legendary Origins
Like most Chinese holidays, the mid-autumn festival is rich in oral history and legend. According to stories, Hou Yi was a tyrannical ruler who won the elixir of immortality by shooting 9 suns out of the sky with his bow. But his wife, knowing that the people’s lives would remain miserable for all eternity if Hou Yi lived forever, drank the potion. The fluids made her lighter, and she floated up into the moon. Even today, Chinese like to think of the moon as home of Chang E.
A Historical Anecdote
The Mongol Hordes of Ghengis Khan subjugated the Chinese, and established the Yuan Dynasty in the 13th Century. However, many Chinese resented the fact that they were ruled by a foreign regime. In the 14th Century, Liu Bouwen helped plot the overthrow of the Yuan Dynasty by organizing resistance. Secret messages were passed along in mooncakes.
Mooncakes
The ubiquitous fare at any Chinese celebration of the Full Moon festival, Autumn mooncakes are a flaked pastry stuffed with a wide variety of fillings. Egg Yolk, lotus seed paste, red bean paste, and coconut are common, but walnuts, dates, and other fillings can be found as well. Most have characters for longevity or harmony inscribed on the top. Special cakes can reach almost one foot in diameter.
Source: http://www.c-c-c.org/chineseculture/festival/zhongqiu/zhongqiu.html
Zhong Qiu Jie / Mid-Autumn Festival In China
Chinese have long linked the ups and down of life to the changes of the moon. As the full moon is round (轮 – yuan), and symbolize reunion (圆 – yuan), it is also known as the Festival of Reunion in China. All family members try to get together on this special day. Those who can not return home watch the bright moonlight and feel deep longing for their loved ones.
In China, Mid Autumn Festival is one of the major holiday, with many festival activities and special public performances. After a reunion dinner, families will go together to scenic spots and parks for moon appreciation parties, eating Autumn moon cakes and pomeloes in the cool night air and praying for a safe year.
Different parts of China each has different ways to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival or Festival Mooncake. In some places people make fires inside a towers to celebrate the festival, because they think the fire is a symbol of good business. In the Zhejiang Province, watching the flood tide of the Qian-tang River during the Mid-Autumn Festival is not only a must for local peple, but also an attraction for those from other parts of the country.
In Nanjing, people cook duck with sweet-scented osmanthus, because Nanjing people think sweet-scented osmanthus is a symbol of peace. In Guangzhou, a huge lantern show is a big attraction for locals and visitors. Thousands of differently shaped lanterns are lit, forming a fantastic contrast with the bright moonlight. In Chaozhou, Guangdong Province, people eat taro to celebrate the festival, because the taro harvest occurs at the same time as the festival. They eat taro and hope the harvest is good in the next year.
Source : http://sgholiday.com/2010/08/moon-cake-festival-2010/
